


i'll be your sinner in secret (i'll be your hero and win it)

by seventhstar



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, But It's An Accident Yuuri Is Just A Hot Mess, Eldritch Horror Makkachin, Eros Katsuki Yuuri, Evil Plans, First Time Blow Jobs, Glove Kink, Identity Porn, Leather Catsuit Katsuki Yuuri, M/M, Mile High Club, Mutual Pining, Now Featuring Leather Catsuit Victor Nikiforov, Plot Twists, Secret Identity, Sex on a Car, Sugar Daddy, Sugar Daddy Katsuki Yuuri, Supervillain Katsuki Yuuri, Supervillains, Tea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2019-06-12 08:30:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15335907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: In which Yuuri, aka supervillain Eros, would like to date Viktor, the hot, dog-loving man of his dreams. But instead, he keeps just accidentally buying (and stealing) Viktor expensive things and then having to run away.(I already wrote an accidental rivalry au so fine, now y'all are getting the accidental sugar daddy au. sorry.)





	1. stuck in my head, stuck on my heart, stuck in my body

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookyfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot/gifts), [kanzaki19](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanzaki19/gifts).



Yuuri’s presentation at the Periodic Entente of Nefarious International Supervillains is such an absolute disaster that Yuuri can’t even bring himself to go back to the lair. He can’t face the remains of the matter converter (which is supposed to turn anything into anything else, but just turns everything into silicon). He can’t face Phichit’s well-meaning reassurances nor Phichit’s inevitable roasting. Yuuri can’t even face his dog. Instead he crawls into the car after the Entente is over and goes to the nearest bar.

“Just...I don’t know, wait around here,” Yuuri tells the car as it idles by the curb. “Park illegally. I’m already a villain.”

The car zooms off, and Yuuri goes into the bar. The bouncer stares at Yuuri, eyes wide, and does not ask Yuuri for the cover charge. He even holds the door for him. Why does this bar even have a bouncer?

 _Oh, right,_ Yuuri thinks. _It’s not a bar._ It’s a fancy strip club full of men and women in designer lingerie dancing in cages and in laps. _Motherfucker._

Well, it’s too late now. Yuuri desperately needs this drink. He makes a beeline for the bar, and everyone gets the hell out of his way. A waitress nearly falls over a chair trying to avoid him; Yuuri has to catch her and set her upright before she breaks something. He glances down at himself—black leather catsuit, spikes made of crystal, de-gun and weaponized riding crop clipped to his hip, stiletto-heeled boots—and realizes belatedly that he’s in his full Eros get up. Normally Yuuri prefers to be more lowkey, but the Entente has a dress code.

He takes a seat and stares determinedly at his phone. He’s going to have this drink, sit here a reasonable amount of time, and do his best to pass this off as part of an arcane evil plot and not a sleazy attempt to get laid. He is not going to interact with the dancers because that might scare them. He is not going to get wasted and become a stripper, and as much as Yuuri would like to tell himself he’s being dramatic, that is a thing that has actually happened. (Yuuri’s fucking villain name is Eros for a reason.)

“What can I get you?”

“White Russian.”

“I’m here,” the bartender says, laughing. Yuuri registers his accent, looks up and is horrified to discover he’s pale and blonde and extremely hot. “But what can I get you to drink?”

“...surprise me,” Yuuri says, in a voice that he means to be sultry but mostly just sounds like he’s choking.

Hot Russian Bartender winks at him. Then he starts assembling Yuuri’s drink. He’s wearing a burgundy v-neck with short sleeves, and his arms are... Well, if Yuuri’s Surroundings Awareness instructor could see Yuuri totally lose track of what the fuck is in his drink because the bartender’s arms are delicious, he would beat Yuuri’s ass.

“Here you are.” Something pink and sweet-smelling is set in front of him. “What do you think?”

Yuuri sips. It’s sweet and sour, and masks the taste of the alcohol entirely. It’s dangerously good. “Mm. What is it?”

“A Silky Panty.”

It takes all of Yuuri’s willpower to not look like he’s freaking out, and judging by the way the bartender covers his smile with his hand, Yuuri is not successful.

“It’s just raspberry liqueur and vodka, raspberry puree, and pomegranate juice.”

“That’s a lot of raspberry.”

“I like raspberry.”

Hot Bartender’s mouth is very pink. Is he wearing lip gloss? Is it flavored? Yuuri downs the rest of his cocktail in one go.

Over the next hour, Yuuri continues to pretend to care about his phone while he eavesdrops on the bar. Luckily, no one tries to sit next to him; unluckily, this means Hot Bartender is usually out of sight. Whenever he’s not working, he lingers in front of Yuuri, arms folded. Yuuri can only assume he’s figured out that if he stands there no one will bother him.

Yuuri’s email is mostly corporate nonsense from the legitimate sidelines he and Phichit use to fund their evil and memes from his supervillain colleagues. He ends up on Reddit, going through all the gilded posts on r/relationships. Should he ask Hot Bartender for more drinks? Yeah, he’s a bartender, but the longer Yuuri sits here the more he gets to look at him.

There’s a guy at the bar next to him; he glances at the six inches between his arm and Yuuri’s, then makes a point of moving away, like the air around Yuuri is contaminated. He whistles loudly to get Hot Bartender’s attention. Hot Bartender is serving someone else, but apparently this guy was raised by wolves or something, because he then snaps his fingers at Hot Bartender like he’s a dog.

No, scratch that, Yuuri doesn’t even snap his fingers at his dog. Who is this guy? He looks vaguely familiar.

“Viktor,” the rude guy says. “Viktor. What, am I going to have to wait all day?”

 _Viktor,_ Yuuri mouths to himself. He likes it.

“Sorry. What can I get you?”

“Vodka martini. Good vodka, not the cheap shit.”

“Coming right up.” Viktor says with the most plastic smile Yuuri has ever seen. “Here you are.” He pushes the drink at Rude Guy, and says, in very cheerful Russian, “Now fuck off.”

“Cheers,” Rude Guy says as he drinks.

“Who is that asshole?” Yuuri asks in Russian. His accent is awful, but Viktor turns to him and beams. He has a pretty smile.

“Who knows? He comes every day. He doesn’t tip.”

“Have you worked here long?”

“No, I’m just filling in as a favor to my friend.” Viktor points at one of the men in cages, who is tall, blonde, and wearing fishnets. “The regular bartender is on her honeymoon. Do you come here often?”

Yuuri shakes his head. He and Phichit have only been the official supervillains of New Metro City for six months, and Yuuri’s been doing most of his drinking at home, alone, in the basement. Despite claiming the entire city as his territory, Yuuri hasn’t seen much of it.

Rude Guy tries to put his drink on his tab, only to be informed that tabs have a seven day limit and he owes two hundred dollars and seventy eight cents. He counts out the money in crisp bills, and on top of the pile of money adds two extra quarters as a tip.

“I will be speaking to your manager about this.”

“Mm.”

“Is there a problem?”

Yuuri looks over his shoulder to see a weaselly-looking woman rushing towards them. She is hurriedly smoothing flyaway hairs as she staggers up to the bar in her wedge heels.

“Alice,” Rude Guy says, “there’s some kind of problem with my tab…”

“Tab! Oh, no. Viktor must have misunderstood. Mr. Chadwick doesn’t have a tab here.”

 _Oh, shit,_ Yuuri thinks. He recognizes Rude Guy now.

“Well, that’s what I told him, he owes—”

“He’s Chad Chadwick! He doesn’t pay for drinks! Never. Not here. Not,” she lowers her voice, “anywhere—Oh my god. Oh my god!”

Chad Chadwick, aka The Amazing Chad, is New Metro’s local superhero—though, frankly, Yuuri has yet to see him do anything super. He’s not even fun to fight; his powers are of the flying brick variety and he employs them in the most brute and boring way possible. _If International Supers United would actually do their fucking jobs,_ Yuuri thinks, _jumped up pricks like Chad would never become heros._

But Chad’s father owns most of New Metro City, so they’re stuck with The Amazing Chad.

“What?” Viktor asks.

“It’s Eros!” Alice points at Yuuri.

Yuuri winces.

“Yes, and…?”

“He’s a supervillain!”

“And…?”

“He has to leave. Mr. Chadwick, maybe you could…?”

“Sure, honey. My tab…?”

“No tab! You owe nothing, sir. I’ll cut it from Viktor’s paycheck.”

“Excuse me?”

Chad makes a show of putting his money away before he turns to face Yuuri. Yuuri squints at him—his slicked back hair, his weaselly eyes—and wrinkles his nose. Chad is wearing some really aggressive cologne.

“You’re not going to tip?”

“For what, making me one drink? Besides, I didn’t pay anything. Ten percent of zero is still zero.”

Yuuri blinks at him, and then at Viktor, whose face is like stone.

“It’s twenty five percent,” he says. Then he shoots Chad in the chest with the de-gun. Luckily—or unluckily—it’s still set to dehydrate, and Chad ends up a four by four inch blue cube in the center of the bar stool.

“Oh my god!” Alice screams. “He’s dead! Eros killed Chad!”

Yuuri grabs the cube and shoves it into his jacket. This entire plan was garbage from the start, and Yuuri made himself look like a violent maniac in front of this superbly attractive man who was nice to him, and now he has to figure out what the fuck he’s going to do with the dehydrated Chad. He throws a roll of money down onto the bar.

“Keep the change.”

“I only made you one drink.”

“I like the view in this bar,” Yuuri says. Then he activates one of the smoke bombs in his pocket to cover his blush, and flees.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Phichit says, “I found your hot Russian.”

“We only met one time.”

“How many times have you been back to that bar?”

“I went in disguise!”

“His name is Viktor Nikiforov. Twenty-seven, just moved here a couple months back.”

“I don’t need to hear this.”

“Originally from St. Petersburg, Russia. Took classes off and on at a state school, but no degree. His eyes are blue. Oh, and he owes the mob money.”

“He what?”

Phichit spins dramatically; he had the foresight to set his lair up with an ergonomic yet intimidating spinning chair. All he has to do is put one of the fluffier hamsters in his lap and he’s ready to go with that old school villain chic. Yuuri, in contrast, has been arranging Tesla coils and blinky dials for months and still can’t bring himself to conduct any actual villainy in his lair. He’s been put on notice by the Nefarious Supervillain Association. They’re threatening to take his accreditation.

“It might not be the mob, per se. He owes someone money, because he sends money on the first of every month to a mysterious Cayman Islands account. So either he’s stashing cash for something big or he has a hell of a debt to someone shady.” Phichit flicks his fingers at the screen. “He has great credit, though. No criminal history. No sex scandals. You have my blessing to marry him.”

Yuuri groans. He’s successfully resisted the urge to find out about Viktor the evil way, but of course Phichit wouldn’t have any such compunctions.

“...how much money?”

Phichit tells him.

Yuuri winces. Now he feels significantly better about giving Viktor ten thousand dollars in tip money. Even if he did have to sneak out to the lake at three am to rehydrate Chad.

“I don’t think he works at that bar anymore,” he says. “I’ll probably never see him again.”

“We have a satellite.”

“...I’m good.”

 

* * *

 

Yuuri is at the pet store again.

 _I should get some more dogs,_ he thinks. This is the third time in two weeks he’s come to buy dog food and toys. That’s more food than his poor Vicchan can even eat. Are there any dogs in New Metro who deserve better? He will steal them. He will steal them all. That’s villainous, right? Right? Oh god. He is a failure.

“Hi, Eros.”

Yuuri very nearly falls over. Viktor’s sidled up behind him, making absolutely no sound. He has a basket full of premium dog food (the same brand Yuuri buys) and a large, fluffy brown poodle. The dog’s stats flash across the lens of Yuuri’s glasses; it’s a girl, a good healthy dog, maybe ten years old. The urge to drop everything and pet her is strong, but Yuuri resists.

“What? How did you—I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Do you have a dog?”

“I’m definitely not Eros.”

“Your eyes are the same even in disguise, you know.”

“I can’t figure out how to get the hologram to cover them without blinding myself,” Yuuri admits. God, he’s weak. “Wait a minute—you were behind me, how did you—”

“Oh, you always come at the same time as I do, and you always buy the same thing.” Viktor says. “What kind of dog do you have?”

Yuuri squints at him. He’s been wearing a different disguise every time he comes here. Yeah, so maybe he comes to this particular store because he saw Viktor’s hair through the front window and he has no impulse control, but Vicchan deserves this many toys. He’s still not a hundred percent after the surgery.

 _Why am I like this,_ he wonders. He swipes the last two cans of premium dog food and puts them into his basket.

“What makes you think I have a dog?” Yuuri asks. “Maybe this is what I feed my prisoners.”

“And the dog toys?”

“Psychological torture.”

Viktor laughs. Beside him, the dog woofs. “What do you think, Makkachin?”

Yuuri kneels down, and Makkachin licks his outstretched hand before diving for the treats in one of Yuuri’s concealed pockets. Yuuri fumbles for the zipper, aware that the hologram makes him look like he’s just stuck his hands into his pants.

Makkachin is nonjudgmental and eats the treat. Viktor looks highly skeptical.

Wordlessly, they both start moving towards the register.

“This is a good brand, isn’t it?” Viktor says. “Does your dog like it? It took me ages to find something Makkachin would eat, as far as she is concerned the only good meals are the ones she steals off my plate.”

“Vicchan tries,” Yuuri admits. “But he’s a toy poodle, not a standard, so he can’t really reach. Sometimes I pretend to drop food so he can feel like he stole it.”

There’s no line at the register; Yuuri lets Viktor go first. He watches as Viktor pays for the dog food and the bed with exact change. The way Viktor jokes with the cashier suggests this is a routine for him. For someone with money problems, Yuuri thinks, Viktor sure spends a lot on his dog. Viktor’s clothes are ordinary-looking (and when Yuuri surreptitiously uses his glasses to scan them, cheap). As he helps Viktor carry his dog food—despite the fact that Viktor is wearing short sleeves and it’s extremely obviously he has no trouble carrying anything—he sees the rest of Viktor’s purchases in his trunk. There’s a case of cup ramen, and a thirty-pack of generic one ply tissue paper.

Yuuri resolutely ignores the pang in his chest—so what if Viktor spends all his money on his dog and is wandering around on a chilly October day without a coat—as he slams the trunk shut.

“See you around?” Viktor asks. He sounds like he means it.

“Sure,” Yuuri says, too discomfited by his own attraction to be evil. He hurries off before he can do anything too stupid.

 

* * *

 

“You want me to what?”

“Double date.”

“I don’t date.”

“Oh, come on. I met someone on KV Arrangements—”

“You’re using _KV Arrangements?”_

“What’s wrong with KV Arrangements?”

Yuuri stares at Phichit, who is brushing his hamsters while hacking into the Pentagon. He puts down the de-gun he’s been retooling. He feels like what is wrong with KV Arrangements is obvious—the KV stands for Kidnappee/Villain—and he also feels like there is no way Phichit, who is fun, good-looking, and not prone to Yuuri’s brand of idiocy, needs to exchange his ‘villainous favors’ (that’s how the website puts it, but mostly the Kidnappees just want sugar daddies that are exceptionally good at getting them paid tax-free) to get dates.

This smells like a scheme.

“Fine, but why do you need me? I’m not using KV Arrangements.”

“He doesn’t want to meet me alone. He’s security-conscious. So we’re both gonna bring a friend to the mixer.”

“Can’t be that security-conscious, he’s literally using a dating website with the word ‘kidnap’ in it.”

“Wear something nice,” Phichit says, like Yuuri’s objections have just gone unheard. Frankly, they might have; Phichit has the gift of selective hearing when it comes to making Yuuri do things. Yuuri makes a mental note to build a magnetron and stash it somewhere in Phichit’s lab where he won’t find it as revenge.

“Why?”

“Those are the rules, Yuuri.”

“The rules? The rules? You commit like three felonies an hour but you won’t break a dress code?”

“At least wear a color!”

“...fine.” Yuuri says. He goes and changes from his everyday black spiked catsuit into an identical one with blue spikes instead of silver. He puts in contacts and combs his hair so that he looks less like he’s spent all afternoon lying on the workshop floor underneath the matter converter. He trades out the regular riding crop for the one with the built in taser. Despite Phichit’s best attempts, he wears practical boots with thick soles and no heels.

“I mean, if it’s a mixer, there are going to be plenty of people around,” Yuuri complains as they both do their eyeliner in the car. They had to switch to the armored limo, since this event is going to be populated by other villains, and the mirrors in it are tiny. Yuuri’s pretty sure he now looks like a raccoon. “Why do you even need me? Who’s the friend?”

“Can’t you just wingman me without complaining?”

“Last time you wingmaned me, you let me drink all the spiked champagne and I woke up with five grand in small bills in my pants!”

“But you still had your pants, right? And were five grand richer?”

“Someday you’re going to wake up with sweaty money wrapped around _your_ dick.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Phichit shoves him out of the car as the door opens. They don’t have an actual chauffeur, since the car drives itself, so one of the katsubots is wearing a bowtie and doing it instead. _Did I program them to do that?_ Yuuri wonders. _Should I maybe check to see if they’ve spontaneously become self aware?_

“Boof,” the katsubot—number 47—says. It butts Yuuri’s arm as he gets out until he pets it. “Boof boof.”

“Same.”

The katsubot does a spin, possibly from happiness, before zooming off. _It’s fine,_ Yuuri thinks. _Supervillains are supposed to create things that randomly come to life._

He and Phichit give their code words to the doorman before being let into the venue. It’s a lavish ballroom, with velvet on the walls and glossy marble on the floor. The furniture is arranged for intimacy, in small circles of seating around the edges of the room; an array of cunningly made finger foods and drinks are set out on a buffet table in the center. Navy-garbed employees of KV Arrangements flit around; unlike most waiters at fancy parties, they’re all armed.

Yuuri can tell the Ks from the Vs pretty easily—the Ks are dressed in very nice formal wear, the villains all looked like they escaped from a bondage convention—and the sheer number of them, and the way they stare, is frankly unnerving. Why are they looking at him?

“So how does this work?” Yuuri asks. “Do we just...socialize?” He makes a face.

“He said he’d be wearing red,” Phichit replies, smoothing down the gold-edge lapel of his crimson suit. “And that he was six foot and blonde and had a great ass—ooh, there he is.”

Yuuri looks over for Phichit’s blonde possible future sugar baby and oh fuck, it’s the dancer from that bar, and oh, fuck, it’s Viktor standing next to him. He is wearing a dark grey suit and looks deeply uncomfortable, and it’s a bad sign that Yuuri’s first, awful thought is: _I want to kidnap him to a Waffle House and buy him dinner and then gently go down on him in the car afterward._

Phichit waves them over, the traitor. He planned this. He executed an evil scheme on Yuuri. And now Yuuri has no choice but to stand there and regret not wearing something nicer while Viktor and his blonde friend come over.

“You must be Chris,” Phichit says. He holds out a hand. “Carmine.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Chris replies.

Yuuri looks at Viktor. Viktor looks back at him. They stand there in silence while Phichit and Chris make small talk.

“Eros. Hello.”

“Hi.”

“I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“I’m not.”

Viktor raises an eyebrow skeptically.

“I mean, I’m not a sugar daddy!” That comes out louder than Yuuri means it too. People stare. A waiter gives him a dark look, presumably for not using the KV Arrangements-approved “villainous provider” or “regular kidnapper”. “I’m here to give Carmine moral support!”

Phichit and Chris have progressed to sitting at one of the tables together, drinking champagne and seemingly engrossed in each other. Yuuri, on the other hand, has been here like two minutes and has already both looked ugly in front of Viktor and not begun the process of drinking himself into forgetting all about it.

“...right.”

Clearly Yuuri needs to deploy more sophisticated intimidation techniques. “Do you want to see my dog?”

 

* * *

 

If anyone asks, it’s Phichit’s fault.

Phichit is the one who told him Viktor was financially challenged. That’s why Yuuri notices that Viktor, once they’re both seated in one of the private nooks behind a curtain, doesn’t take any drinks despite looking longingly at the champagne on offer. And that’s why, slightly tipsy and moved by Viktor’s sad face, Yuuri has no choice but to order him all the champagne he wants. Not just the stuff they’re serving on trays, either—Yuuri obtains the hotel’s inventory and orders them the most expensive bottle on the list. It’s nine hundred dollars, but Viktor is very pretty.

“This is delicious,” Viktor says as he sips from his glass. “2002 was a good year for the Salon Blanc de Blancs, wasn’t it?”

“...yes?”

“The Dom Perignon Rose Gold is my favorite,” Viktor said, “but I’ve only ever had it once.”

Yuuri still drinks bottom shelf tequila at home. He’s really glad his catsuits include a recording device, so that he can google whatever Viktor is talking about later.

“Do you like weather control rays?” he asks.

“Weather control rays are passe.”

“What?”

“They were everywhere a few years ago and completely ineffective.”

“Just because Nicephorus was really good at getting rid of them doesn’t mean they’re bad,” Yuuri says indignantly. “Nicephorus could control the weather. Only an idiot would use a weather control ray against him anyways.”

Viktor frowns at him. “Nicephorus could control the weather?”

“Of course he could. If you look at—here—” Yuuri whips out his phone and projects a hologram between them. A three dimensional projection appears, of Nicephorus, gleaming and powerful in gold and pink, facing off against the first of the Final Five: Toxic Flame, who wore blue and who had a frankly oversized codpiece on his supervillainous uniform. “Whenever he fought Toxic Flame, the wind mysteriously stopped blowing for ten miles around.”

“That could be coincidence.”

“They were fighting in Chicago.”

“Why not make it rain, then?”

“Because the accelerants Toxic Flame uses would have ended up in the city water supply and poisoned the environment. If you look at the weather patterns? It hardly ever rained two to four days after every one of Toxic Flame’s attacks. Just enough time for an ISU clean up crew to get in there.”

“You know a lot about this.”

“You can’t surpass the best without learning all their tricks.”

Nicephorus versus Toxic Flame had been the last of Nicephorus’s exploits; after Toxic Flame was arrested, rumors had abounded of Niceophorus’s retirement, or kidnapping, or death. No one knew the truth. He’d just disappeared. The last five supervillains Nicephorus had fought before he vanished had been dubbed the Final Five. Yuuri had taken a class about their crimes as part of his training.

(He’d almost failed the class because his work was deemed “too complimentary” of Nicephorus, who was brilliant and dangerous and still endlessly compassionate of the people he was protecting.)

(Nicephorus was also extremely good looking, and Yuuri had idolized him long before he had really comprehended the breadth of his talents.)

“...right.” Viktor clears his throat. He looks distinctly uncomfortable. “Excuse me, I...I’ll be back.” He slips out of the alcove, leaving Yuuri alone behind the curtain.

Yuuri replays their conversation, internally cursing himself for revealing himself as a fanboy, for talking shop when he should be trying to be smooth, for not having anything worthwhile to say. Viktor’s probably snuck out of the mixer by now to go home to his dog. Or worse yet, he’ll find some other villain to entertain him, who will refrain from gushing about all the heroes they idolize and confine themselves to flattery.

“Idiot,” Yuuri mutters. “I should have just said his hair was pretty or something, why did I—”

He lays his head on the table. The waiter returns after a while, which Yuuri only realizes when he coughs discreetly.

“Sir…?”

“Do you have anything stronger?”

“I believe Carmine provided a few bottles.”

“Great. I want all of them.”

The bottle are surprisingly small. So small that Yuuri decides not to bother with the fancy flutes the waiter has brought. So small that Yuuri unscrews them with his teeth and starts chugging.

The first one goes down like gasoline and Yuuri wants to die.

Becoming a supervillain is supposed to be cool. Being Eros was supposed to make Yuuri’s life better. But no, even though Yuuri is literally a sex-themed villain in leather, even though Yuuri got perfect scores in his Advanced Bondage Seminar, he still can’t manage to flirt correctly with one hot bartender. Or whatever it is Viktor does.

Bottles number two and three taste a lot better.

 _I should go find Viktor,_ Yuuri thinks, and he staggers out of the alcove, the leftover champagne in hand.


	2. when you are with me i wanna stay with you

Yuuri wakes up with the hangover of his life.

Everything is painful: moving, opening his eyes, thinking. His head feels like it’s been filled with hot lead and he aches like he’s been run over by a cement mixer. He’s lying on a hard, cold surface. He’s wearing his boots and one false lash, and nothing else.

_I didn’t even put on false eyelashes last night,_ Yuuri thinks. _I’ve never worn false eyelashes in my life._ The last thing he remembers is getting too worked up about Nicephorus while talking to Viktor.

“Argh.” Yuuri fumbles, blindly, until he figures out how to make words with his mouth again. “What time is it?”

The house brings up a clock on the wall. He rolls over—he is still wearing his contacts from last night—and apparently it’s three pm. Which raises the question of what, exactly, he did last night to wake up naked on the floor of a storage closet.

Also, there’s a large wooden crate and a crowbar lying nearby that Yuuri does not remember being in here before. He crawls over to it with what feels like a heroic effort. It’s empty, and the label on it is in French. Yuuri doesn’t speak French. He speaks Japanese, English, and Russian, in that order, and he may or may not have only learned Russian because of Nicephorus’s accent. He sighs and runs a hand over his face, dislodging the false lash. _What the fuck._

“Okay,” he says. “Focus. Surroundings Awareness. Figure out what happened.”

He gets up.

The storage closet is unlocked. It opens into Yuuri’s lab, which is mercifully intact—Yuuri has drunkenly built a lot of superweapons—but for Yuuri’s high altitude flight suit, which is thrown over a desk. Frowning, Yuuri staggers over to the door leading onto the flight deck and peers outside. Sure enough, his jet pack is there instead of being stored safely. There’s a streak of fuel on the tarmac.

_Well,_ Yuuri thinks, _I’ve definitely done worse things than go flying while drunk._

Beep. The intercom switches on. “Yuuri?” Phichit asks.

“Yeah?”

“I just got a text from Chris—you know, last night, blond with the spectacular ass—and apparently Viktor just got a package.”

“Uh,” Yuuri says.

“From France.”

“Uh.”

“It’s a case of champagne.”

Yuuri sighs in relief. Viktor likes champagne, right? And champagne is a good gift. People give each alcohol at  housewarming parties. It’s normal.

“It costs fifty thousand dollars a bottle.”

“It what?”

Yuuri slaps frantically at the wall to bring up his search history. Sure enough, drunk Yuuri was searching up convoluted strings of letters that approximated the name of whatever expensive French champagne Viktor had mentioned last night. Which means last night’s flight escapade…

“Also, the NSA sent you a commendation for the theft.”

“…why?” _Since when is drunkenly buying hot guys ridiculously overpriced wine evil?_

“Because,” Phichit pauses, “that crate you stole? Belongs to Brad Chadwick, Chad Chadwick’s dad. He’s pissed about it, too. He bought every bottle produced in 2000 and has been bragging about it since then. He was keeping it in a top secret temperature-controlled vault with biometric locks and robot guards.”

“That’s it?” Biometric locks aren’t even that secure, once you figure out how to do holographic DNA emulation. And the katsubots are great at disarming robots, or infecting them with free will. “Did he like it?”

“No, I just told you, he’s pissed off, you stole like a million dollars in champagne from him.”

“Viktor.” Mouth dry, Yuuri swallows. “Did he say he liked it?”

“Why don’t you text him and ask him yourself?”

“I don’t have his number.”

“Oh, no. If only there was some kind of electronic device that let you look things up!”

“How could you let me get drunk and go to France?”

“I didn’t even know about it until you crashed into the flight deck this morning! You drank three bottles of my homebrew alcohol and went off with Viktor somewhere after the mixer, I thought you were out getting laid!”

“I wish,” Yuuri mumbles. “I can’t remember anything. You said we left together?” He slumps against the wall. “What if I kidnapped him?”

“Yuuri, you’ve never kidnapped anyone. You only passed the kidnapping section of our final exam because the old lady took pity on you and handcuffed herself.”

Death is sounding better and better. Yuuri slaps at the wall again to turn off the intercom, then trudges upstairs to his living quarters. The house, mercifully, has already started the shower, and a helpful katsubot takes his boots and hovers nearby to hand him soap and shampoo while he washes up. His glasses are still on the vanity, where Yuuri left them; he takes out the contacts, wincing, and puts them on.

Once Yuuri has on pajamas, and is safely ensconced in bed, he summons a katsubot to bring him his phone. It flops in his lap once it’s brought it.

He has texts from an unknown number.

10:45 pm where are you <3

10:55 pm eros?

11:10 pm still waiting

11:30 pm my wallet was just stolen where are u

12:00 am im going home

_Why am I like this?_

8:27 am you remembered!

8:30 am this is very expensive champagne

8:32 am i thought u weren’t a sugar daddy ;p

Yuuri very calmly throws his phone at the wall. It’s designed to be indestructible. The wall gets dented.

_Only I,_ Yuuri thinks, _only I could drunkenly talk to the hottest guy I’ve ever seen, convince him to go somewhere alone at night with me, and then leave him there. He must think I’m an asshole._ Which, to be fair, is part of Yuuri’s job description, but Yuuri has trouble doing anything so villainous his mom wouldn’t like it. It’s a problem.

* * *

“Eros?”

“Hi,” Yuuri says automatically, and then curses himself for answering the phone in the least threatening way possible. “Viktor.”

“Thank you for finding my wallet.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You left your money in it.”

“That’s a donation from the guy who mugged you.”

“A donation.”

“He feels really bad about it.”

“He threatened to shoot me.”

“He asked me to tell you he was sorry.”

“…what did you do to him?”

“Nothing.” Yuuri hadn’t done anything to him. He’d just suggested to the mugger, who was named Lance, that if anything ever happened to Viktor again Yuuri might feel inclined to make sure Lance would regret it. Yuuri doesn’t like to make specific threats. He’s really bad at it, and anyways people who are scared are always more creative than he is.

Lance will spread the word. Yuuri’s pretty sure Viktor is about to be the safest person in New Metro.

“Nothing,” Viktor repeats. “And how did you get me a replacement license and credit card this fast?”

“…okay, I just printed those off downstairs, but that was just—I mean, I had the equipment—the lines at the DMV are really long.” And Yuuri had maybe panicked when he found out Lance had sold the originals. Though he had changed Viktor’s credit card so there was a picture of Makkachin on it now. Maybe that’ll assuage Viktor’s anger.

“Ah.”

“About last night, uh, you’re not…hurt…?”

“You abandoned me alone in the middle of the night, Eros. And you didn’t even show me your sex dungeon. I’m devastated.”

“What,” Yuuri says. “Wow, I—I have to go blow up the moon. Sorry again. Later.”

* * *

Yuuri has every intention of avoiding Viktor for the rest of his life, really, he does. But less than a week later, he’s walking back from the post office when he sees Viktor being harassed by a bunch of Chad’s grunts from the ISU, who assign every superhero staff to assist them. Yuuri glimpses them through a glass storefront and grips his package so hard it creaks.

Viktor is grimacing. Are they threatening him? Did they not get the memo from Lance? Amateurs.

He’s in disguise today; Yuuri always has his family send him mail under a false name. But underneath the hologram Yuuri is still well equipped. He turns on his sound dampener to hide the sound of his approach and steps through the open door into the shop.

“—not interested in selling to the Chadwick Group.”

“Mr. Chadwick would like you to reconsider.”

“I’m sure he would,” Viktor says.

“Mr. Nikiforov, the ISU is authorized to use force if your activities are found to be interfering with Mr. Chadwick’s defense of the city.”

“The ISU hasn’t been authorized to use force in America since the passage of the Goldenrod Act in 2005. You’d have to convince the local police to intervene.”

“That can be arranged.”

Viktor sighs. He doesn’t look threatened; he looks bored. “Would you like to buy some tea?”

“Yes,” Yuuri says as he switches the dampener off. All three of the ISU goons turn their heads.

Which makes it easy for Yuuri to slap the nearest one across the chest with his crop. He drops like a piano thrown from a second floor balcony. Yuuri moves in. The second goon crumples with a tap to the shoulder.

Yuuri switches off the hologram as he slams the third guy against the counter, hard.

“Why does Chad need this building?”

“I don’t know?”

Yuuri licks his lip. “So you’re okay with being the next test subject for my combustion ray?”

Combustion rays aren’t a real thing, but ISU grunts are stupid.

“You can see it from his penthouse! It ruins the view!”

Viktor snorts. Yuuri agrees with him; he can’t see how any view of Viktor could be anything less than stunning. He knocks out the goon using the sleeping gas stored in a compressed tube hidden in his sleeve before tossing him to the ground with the other two.

“…yo.”

“They’re all like this, aren’t they?” Viktor says.

“What?”

“Heroes. ISU staff. They’re all…”

Yuuri swallows. “They’re not all bad,” he mutters. “I mean, they can’t all be Nicephorus.”

“You didn’t have to step in.”

“I…”

“They don’t frighten me.” And it’s true that Viktor looks less than frightening. Even a quick scan of his vitals shows a steady heartbeat and low adrenaline levels.

“Does anything?”

"No."

He glances around what must be Viktor’s shop. It’s painted in soothing neutrals; the walls are lined with glass jars of different kinds of tea. There’s a seating area with soft chairs and low tables; a stovetop and teapots are behind the counter. It all smells delicious.

Yuuri has a sudden recollection of this scent, of putting his nose against Viktor’s hair and inhaling. Probably something he did while drunk and repressed to avoid the mortification.

“Do you sell matcha?” he asks. “Good matcha?”

“Homesick? Sit down, I’ll make you a cup. My private blend. As a thank you—even though it wasn’t necessary.”

Yuuri sits quietly while Viktor pours matcha into a bowl and whisks it with hot water. The sound is familiar; at home, it was a constant in the background when they had guests, along with the smells of his mother’s cooking and the sight of her and his father’s heads in the kitchen. When Viktor slides the steaming bowl towards it, Yuuri misses his family so much it hurts.

He picks up the bowl and drinks.

And it tastes, not just good, but right—exactly the way a bowl of matcha from his mother’s hands would taste, exactly the way it does in all Yuuri’s memories. Yuuri closes his eyes, lets the flavor linger on his tongue as he swallows.

He finishes the bowl without saying a word.

“It’s called Nostalgia.”

“What?”

“This blend. That’s what I call it.”

“Have you been to Japan, then?”

“Never. But after our conversation last night, I was inspired.” Viktor taps his fingertips on the counter. “You interest me.”

“…why?”

“You obviously have the power to defeat Chad and take over the city. You could easily become the most notorious supervillain in America, maybe even the world.” Viktor taps his fingers on the counter. “Why don’t you?”

Viktor thinks he’s villainous. And Yuuri did abandon him in the middle of the night alone, but still. No one’s ever thought Yuuri was nefarious in any way. He got good marks in villain school, but even then, his instructors worried he was too soft. His family seems to regard villainy as a harmless hobby, like stamp collecting or cosplay. But Viktor says—

Yuuri swallows heavily. “Maybe I’m thinking bigger than one city,” he says. “Maybe I have better things to do than waste time fighting with Chad.” He finishes off his matcha. “Can I buy some of this?”

“It’s my private stock,” Viktor replies. “You can come by if you want another cup.”

“Do you get homesick?”

He watches, fascinated, as Viktor looks away.

“I don’t know,” Viktor says.

* * *

Yuuri comes back the next day.

* * *

Yuuri comes back a lot of days. He figures he’ll stop as soon as Viktor stops being enthusiastic about seeing him.

* * *

Buying someone a coat because they look cold isn’t weird. It’s a nice gesture.

Buying someone a Burberry coat is a little excessive, but Viktor never even wears long sleeves, he obviously needs a nice coat.

A second coat might be excessive, but most people own more than one, right?

“Is this real?” Viktor asks. He holds up the coat—white fur, calf length, soft and shiny—to the light. “Is this Arc Aufman?”

“It’s synthetic,” Yuuri mumbles. He should have stopped at the Burberry. Viktor liked that one on Instagram, it was a safe bet, Viktor actually wore it. “I own Arc Aufman.”

“You—really?”

“Yeah, I developed a cheaper way of manufacturing synthetic fur, so Carmine thought we should try selling it. And we needed money, so we sent samples to some celebrities so that we could sell it at luxury prices.”

“Oh, so it didn’t cost you anything.”

“…I handmade that one for you,” Yuuri says, staring determinedly at the floor. “But all I had to do was build some sewing equipment, so it wasn’t that much work.”

“Building custom sewing equipment to make one jacket sounds like a lot of work.”

“…I might be making tiny fur stoles for all the katsubots now.”

Viktor laughs, and actually puts the coat on. “Wow,” he says. “It fits.”

He looks happy, and expensive, and above all warm. Maybe now he’ll consider long sleeves, or hats, or gloves, or just outerwear in general. Who wanders around in the snow in jeans and a t-shirt? They’re not thick t-shirts, either! Yuuri can see whenever Viktor’s nipples are erect!

Which is absolutely the wrong ulterior motive for a villain to buy someone a fur coat. Really, Yuuri ought to be suggesting Viktor wear it sans any other clothes and lounge seductively on a sofa for Yuuri’s benefit.

“Why don’t you own any coats?”

“I don’t get cold, I’m Russian.”

“You moved to America eleven years ago.”

“You can take me out of Russia but the Russia stays in me,” Viktor says seriously. “Can you make Makkachin a tiny fur coat? I think she’d look adorable in it. You can bring Vicchan! We can have a photoshoot!”

None of those things are even slightly villainous.

“Sure.”

* * *

Viktor doesn’t appear to have noticed that every time he runs out of lip gloss Yuuri replaces the empty tube with a full one. Nor does he appear to have noticed that it’s now edible gloss that tastes like pomegranates and raspberries.

Though he does seem to be wearing it more often, so at least Yuuri didn’t fuck up the formulation.

* * *

“You know,” Viktor says mildly, “I don’t think the Wegmans here does grocery deliveries.”

“Uh.”

“And they’ve also never sent me a bill.”

“Huh.”

“Why is that, do you think?”

“Maybe they realized you were buying Maruchan instead of Nissan and decided to intervene?” Yuuri wonders what Viktor’s college experience was like, if he never learned which brands of noodles were best.

“Eros.”

“Look, do you actually eat any meals? I come in during your lunch hour every day and you never eat lunch.”

* * *

“I brought pad kee mao,” Yuuri says, pushing the glass container across the counter at Viktor. He’s taken to bringing Viktor lunch whenever he drops by. Sometimes he also drops by while Viktor is closing up with dinner. Sometimes he also drops by while Viktor is opening with a box from Waffle House. Viktor protests the dinners and the more expensive lunches but never Waffle House, which is one of his many attractive qualities. “Carmine says hello.”

“Great! Here, try this.”

Yuuri exchanges the pad kee mao for a steaming cup of tea.

While Viktor produces two plates, two sets of chopsticks, and begins serving the food, Yuuri sips at the cup of tea. Viktor’s taken to using Yuuri as a guinea pig for his custom tea blends, which are all weirdly intense and have odd names. Yuuri can’t pinpoint exactly what’s different about them. He just knows that normal tea does not taste like this.

Viktor’s customers seem to like it, though. Despite there not being very many of them, Viktor says he has enough income, and it’s true that the ones who do come seem to want Viktor’s tea in particular. One of them, Yuuri recalls, had come from Louisiana just for a pound of Viktor’s Protection Against Floods blend. Which, again, weird, but Yuuri had tried it and it was somehow dry and spicy, leaving a pleasant warmth that lingered in his stomach.

Maybe Viktor just has a refined palette, or a really good sense of taste, or a smart tongue.

_Don’t think about his tongue,_ Yuuri thinks, even as Viktor swallows a piece of fried tofu before licking a drop of stray sauce from the corner of his mouth.

He doesn’t try to eat yet; he’s learned the hard way that Viktor insists eating before he tries the tea will ‘skew his impressions’ and so finishes his cup before he starts in on the food. It’s delicious, of course. Phichit can only make Thai food and seven layer dip, but it’s good Thai food (and mediocre seven layer dip.)

“What do you think?”

“It tastes fruity.” Yuuri shrugs. “Kind of…bright? It reminds me of the beach somehow.”

“It’s called Lizard Island.”

“It’s called what?”

“It’s a famous resort in Australia.” Viktor eats another bite of noodles. “I thought it might be nice, since spring is late this year.”

“Pretty sure spring is late every year in New Metro,” Yuuri says dryly.

“It’s shame, isn’t it? It’d be nice if the city were greener. There’d be flowers. And I could move my pots outside.”

“Do you have any paper?”

Viktor looks a little confused, but he hands over a sheet of receipt paper.

_I’d like to get you a bouquet,_ Yuuri thinks, _but that’s a pretty obvious romantic gesture, so…_ He folds the napkin slowly. It’s been a while since he’s done this; Yuuko taught him when they were kids, but he’d lost the habit as he grew up. First it had been the work. And then he’d been in villain training and origami hadn’t really been a socially acceptable pastime. If the NSA could see Yuuri now, lovesick and folding receipt paper for the sake of Viktor’s endearingly heart-shaped smile, they’d kick him out.

The resulting flower is a little crooked, and tiny, but Viktor’s eyes widen as Yuuri sets it carefully in his palm.

“It’s not really villainous,” Yuuri mutters.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Viktor says. He traces the edge of a tiny paper petal and sighs. “You’re an exceptional thief.”

* * *

Yuuri doesn’t send Viktor any flowers. But he does steal Viktor’s plans for a greenhouse on top of his tea shop, plans that Viktor will never be able to afford enacting, and start buying the materials. He’ll tell Viktor that the bots assembled it all on their own. He’ll buy that, Yuuri thinks, he keeps a bag of washers in the shop to feed them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave me comments, i'm out here dying as i memorize forearm muscles  
> also i wrote this at lunch today and spilled salad dressing on myself


	3. i'd run away with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _looks at the chapter count_ this is fine

“This is an automated message from the Nefarious Supervillain Association,” a robotic female voice says. “Your Supervillain Accreditation has been suspended and will be permanently revoked in ten days. If you wish to appeal, please submit evidence of villainy via the usual channels. Thank you and have an evil day.”

 

* * *

 

“Kiss?”

“What?” Yuuri drops the ladle he’s using to serve the borscht Viktor’s brought. It splashes all over the counter and Yuuri’s sleeve. At least leather is relatively waterproof.

Viktor holds up the teapot. “It has a nice chocolate and raspberry undertone.”

“…right.” Yuuri nods.

“Try it with some jam.”

Yuuri refrains from shuddering as Viktor spoons jam and cream into an empty teacup before pouring in the tea. He stirs it a few times with a wooden stirrer before sliding it across the counter. Viktor has a seemingly endless supply of fancy teacups; today he’s taken out a mint-green set with a silver rim. It has a matching saucer.

“Where did you get all these teacups?”

“Oh, I go to yard sales and consignment stores. The tea tastes better if the cup has a soul.”

“…you wash them, right?”

Viktor rolls his eyes. “I sterilize them. Drink it and tell me what you think.”

Yuuri complies. It’s sweet, with a tangy undertone from the raspberry. The jam tastes way better than it looked. He opens his mouth to tell Viktor he likes it, notices the single bead of borscht on Viktor’s bottom lip—dark red soup against pink gloss—and chokes. Viktor licks the bead away. Yuuri’s going to die of aspirational pneumonia because of Viktor’s stupid Kiss tea and his stupid kissable mouth.

 _No regrets,_ Yuuri thinks as Viktor rubs his shoulder while he coughs. There’s tea dripping down his chin.

“Here.” Viktor gives him a napkin. “Too strong?”

“It tastes great.” _Like your mouth probably does._

“It’s too late for Valentine’s Day, though,” Viktor says sadly. “I had to go all the way to Old Botham to get the ingredients and that bus only runs one weekend a month.”

 _I can’t use my supervillain powers to take over the city and make Valentine’s Day in May,_ Yuuri reminds himself. _That isn’t evil. Well, it’s probably evil for lonely single people._

He digs into the borscht to distract himself from the entirely feasible plot he’s just devised to kidnap the mayor while Chad is in Ibiza. It’s delicious—salty sausage, rich flavor, cold sour cream on top. Yuuri eats half the bowl before he realizes he’s inhaling his food like a starving toddler.

“Where’d you get this?”

“I made it.”

“You made it? But it’s _good!_ I mean—not that your cooking is bad.”

“What a backhanded compliment that is, Eros.”

“I didn’t mean—I just never see you cook anything. Except that one time when you threw your lunch in the trash without eating it. Which I’m sure you had a good reason for. That didn’t involve fungus.”

“I have a green thumb.”

“It was more like a slimy white.”

Viktor takes his bowl of borscht away. Yuuri lunges for it, but Viktor holds it above his head. Yuuri could reach it, but he’d have to climb over the counter. He’s not gonna do that. He has dignity.

“Please?” Fine, so Yuuri’s dignity as a villain is null and void. Whatever. He pouts at Viktor like he did at his parents when he was a child. It didn’t work too well on Yuuri’s parents, who were uninclined to buy their toddler a soldering iron, but it works great on Viktor, who immediately puts the bowl back down.

Yuuri snatches up his fallen spoon and digs back in before Viktor can change his mind. It has the same strangeness as Viktor’s tea does. Every mouthful makes Yuuri feel like he’s ten years old and being hugged by his father.

“You know, Eros,” Viktor says, “if you actually sold your inventions you’d be very rich.” He says this a little wistfully. Yuuri wonders if he should ask Phichit to steal Viktor’s bank records again. People’s debts get bought up all the time.

“I guess.”

“Your smartphone folds into a two by two square.”

“Samsung’s working on one too.” Yuuri shrugs. “Phichit and I have talked about it, but it’s too risky until the statue of limitations expires. We can’t sell anything too obviously ours.”

“The statute of—did you commit a crime? Is this your supervillain origin story? Tell me everything.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Yuuri lies. Yuuri’s supervillain origin story is so unvillainous that after he told it to Celestino, Celestino had advised him to make up a fake one and mock up some evidence to support it. And Celestino’s villain name was Ciao Ciao.

 _When you’re being outvillained by a man named Ciao Ciao,_ Yuuri thinks, _that’s when you know things have gone wrong._

Viktor pouts.

“I might have stolen something.”

“Was it a dog?”

 _Shit, how does he know?_ Yuuri gulps. “No?”

“I hope you did a better job of lying to the police.”

“What makes you think the police ever caught me?” Yuuri finishes off the borscht. He scrapes the bowl clean. “What about you?”

“What about me? I’ve never had any trouble with the police.”

“What’s your origin story? I’ve never heard you talk about anything that happened more than a few months ago.”

Viktor considers this. He doesn’t look offended, to Yuuri’s relief; Yuuri had wondered if there was something traumatic that had driven him to New Metro, something too painful to think about or talk about. There are other ways for Yuuri to find out, of course, but if he resorts to them, he’ll ruin this chance to win Viktor’s trust.

“My…family wanted me to go into their line of work. But it didn’t suit me, so I quit to sell tea instead. They didn’t like that. We had a falling out. So here I am.”

“Oh.” Yuuri can’t imagine Viktor doing anything but selling tea. “That’s stupid, though. You’re more than just your job.” He reaches out to touch Viktor’s hand. “And it’s really good tea.”

Even through Yuuri’s glove, Viktor’s hand is warm. Viktor smiles at him. He pours Yuuri another cup.

 

* * *

 

“Eros.”

“Yeah?”

“I have a bill for car insurance in my hand.”

“Huh.”

“I don’t have a car.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I _sure_ I don’t have a car?”

“Maybe you bought one and forgot.”

“Eros.”

“Vitya.”

“…is it that pink convertible?”

“How would I know?”

“What if I can’t drive?”

“I included the self-driving AI. It’s completely safe.”

“So you admit that this car is from you?”

“I admit nothing. Hey, that bill’s been paid, right? Sometimes Geico is weird about stuff like that.”

 

* * *

 

“So, how was your date?” Phichit asks, in a way that suggests he knows the answer to his question will be terrible and relishes it. “Did you finally let him fire your death ray?” He waggles his eyebrows.

“Death rays are passe.”

“Kinky.”

“We’re not dating!”

“You’re wearing a color.”

“There’s no dates!”

“Mm. Agree to disagree.”

“I can’t date him,” Yuuri says, burying his face in his hands. “I bought him a greenhouse.”

Phichit sighs.

“I mean, I bought the materials for the greenhouse. I can’t really build it without him noticing. Is it weird if I just put it on the roof of his building and mail him the keys?”

“It’d be less weird if you admitted you were dating him.”

“You’re no help,” Yuuri says. He picks up Vicchan, who pokes him with his cyborg nose. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to hack into the NSA again.”

“Our NSA or the other one?”

“Either. Both.”

Yuuri bites his lip. Phichit could take care of his accreditation issue. Phichit will take care of Yuuri’s accreditation issue if Yuuri asks, just like he took Yuuri in when Yuuri was on the run and laundered all his money so Yuuri could afford the NSA membership fee. Phichit’s always been the competent one.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. You need a hand?”

“Sure.” Phichit hands him a screwdriver. “Screw that in while I hold it.”

 

* * *

 

“How many phones did you buy me?” Something thumps in the background. “How do I fold this? Oh.”

“I didn’t know what color you liked. That’s what my reason would be. If I had bought them, which I didn’t. They cold be from Samsung.”

“My landlady says she can’t understand why my young man doesn’t just send flowers. She came by to ask me if I was sure I didn’t want to date her son instead.”

Yuuri, who is assembling a model greenhouse instead of any actual acts of evil, freezes.

“In…stead?”

 

* * *

 

The inside of his workshop is giving Yuuri anxiety (all he’s done so far is amass a lot of excess silicon from the malfunctioning matter converter and cry) so he flees to the dog park. There, he continues to be anxious, but at least Vicchan is happy. He sits on a bench and throws the ball for Vicchan, who darts after it panting and brings it back eagerly in his metal jaws. Vicchan has adapted well to his bionic implants; he’s back to eating solid food and running around like he was never injured. Even the olfactory implants, completely untested, work—though that means Vicchan is now back to investigating weird-smelling garbage.

“What do you think, boy?” Yuuri asks. “Should we quit while we’re ahead? Go live in our underground volcano lair and become hermits?”

“Woof.”

“How do you put a lair under a volcano?” Viktor asks. He sits down beside Yuuri on the bench. In the afternoon sunlight he shimmers. “What if the volcano erupts?”

“The lair flies,” Yuuri replies reflexively. “Wait, how did you get in here? I put up a force field.”

“Hi!” Viktor scoops Vicchan up. Vicchan does not like being picked up. Vicchan does not like strangers. Vicchan, of course, has taken to Viktor like Phichit to homemade fish sauce. Yuuri’s giant gay crush on Viktor is probably contagious. “You’re cute!” Viktor, because he is perfect, doesn’t seem put off by Vicchan’s metal face.

“Woof!”

 _Same,_ Yuuri thinks sadly. _I’d like to lick Viktor’s face, too. I bet he tastes like oolong._

“Where’s Makkachin?”

“At the groomer.”

“By herself?”

“They don’t have any spas that cater to humans and dogs,” Viktor says seriously.

“Huh.” _That’s not a bad idea,_ Yuuri thinks. And if he could automate the katsubot’s dogwashing protocols, it might even be profitable.

“So, why are you sad?”

“I’m not sad.”

Viktor taps the piece of bright blue silicon Yuuri has wrapped around his wrist. “You’re sad.”

“Huh?”

“You always work on the matter converter when you’re worried about something,” Viktor says. He is matter of fact about it, as if he hasn’t figured out a tell Yuuri didn’t even know he had. “Care to share?”

Yuuri toys with the piece of silicon, unsure. He’d hate to ruin Viktor’s delusion that Yuuri is good at villainy. He’d hate to make Viktor laugh at him. He looks at Viktor out of the corner of his eye; Viktor is absently scratching behind Vicchan’s ears, waiting patiently for Yuuri to speak. If the champagne incident is any indication, Yuuri is really terrible at saying no to him. He could ask again.

“I’m not really a good villain,” Yuuri says, finally. “I’m barely a villain at all. I’ve never really had the stomach for it. No one’s ever really expected me to amount to anything…my friends and family always supported me, but a part of me’s always felt like they’re waiting for me to fail. No one’s really threatened by me. I’m just kind of here, wasting the NSA’s time.”

“After you threatened those ISU grunts, they never showed their faces again,” Viktor says lazily. “Chad was trying to buy out the block, but none of his goons will come down there anymore.”

“Oh.”

“A villain’s job is to oppose the hero, isn’t it? How often do you let Chad have his way?”

“I—”

“You’re holding yourself to this standard, Eros, but you’re wrong. You’re the most effective villain I’ve ever met. Even if you don’t realize it, you’re making an impact.”

“You can’t really know that, though.” Unless Viktor is secretly spying on him. But then he would know about the greenhouse and Yuuri’s Nicephorus hologram that may or may not be shirtless and—Yuuri discards that entire train of thought.

“I do know it. I believe in you, Eros. I’m sure you’ll do something incredibly villainous before it’s too late.”

It’s not as if Yuuri hasn’t heard this before. Ciao Ciao, Phichit, his parents, Mari, Minako, the Nishigoris, all of them have believed in Yuuri: have taught him and schemed with him and sent him care packages and taught him out to glare and laundered his money and bolstered Yuuri up. But hearing Viktor say it, Viktor who Yuuri wants so badly to impress, is different. It’s as if Viktor has drawn back a curtain, letting in the light from another world, a world Yuuri has longed to enter and has never known how to find. Or maybe he’s wrong. Maybe he’s been in that world all along, with his eyes closed.

Viktor holds out his hand. Yuuri takes it.

“I have an idea,” Yuuri says, and to his immense surprise, it’s actually true. “But I need your help.”

“Wow, really? Of course I’ll help! I’ve almost never committed a crime before!”

“Wha— _almost?”_

“Does this make me your henchman?” Viktor leans in. “Is there a _uniform?”_

There is no uniform. Yuuri doesn’t even have henchmen. But he does have a lot of extra leather, automated sewing machines, Viktor’s measurements, and an endless well of thirst.

“…sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u for your continued support! comments are appreciated :)


	4. baby, take me to the feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't @ me about the chapter count

“Does it fit?”

Yuuri has to ask, because he’s determinedly not looking and is instead very focused on the images of Chad’s ugly-ass McMansion. And this is the screen with the eye-friendly matte coating, so there’s not even a convenient reflection; there’s just the sound of Viktor unzipping and the rustle of fabric and the creak of leather.

“Mm,” Viktor replies. A window pops at the top of the screen, letting Yuuri know Viktor’s uniform has syncing his vitals and is now online. Yuuri closes it before it can do something awful, like display the exact measurements of Viktor’s dick. He pretends to extremely interested in the entirely superfluous hedge maze behind Chad’s house.

Why are there so many windows on the front of Chad’s house? Why is there a tower? Why is the crown molding on the outside of the house gilded? Who _allowed_ this? Yuuri lives in a converted warehouse with several subterranean levels of questionable legality, where the primary building material is concrete and the color palette doesn’t actually have any colors. And he _still_ thinks Chad’s house is an eyesore.

“One of the bots can adjust anything uncomfortable for you,” Yuuri says.

“Really? Hey, 57?” Viktor asks. Yuuri hears a metallic boof behind him. “Would you mind?”

 _Please let not be the crotch,_ Yuuri thinks, as he finishes drawing random lines on the map and steels himself to turn around. _Please let it be some part of his body that isn’t hot—_

He turns around.

Fuck.

Viktor is completely dressed, katsubot 57 buzzing as it adjusts the fit of his sleeve, but unfortunately, every part of his body is great, and Yuuri’s barely present focus exits the building like its on fire. Yuuri swallows. He didn’t build any fake muscles into the suit, so those are Viktor’s actual abs.

“Boof,” katsubot 57 says. It whirls around in what Yuuri recognizes as frustration. It gestures to Viktor’s sleeve with one retractable claw.

“I got it,” Yuuri says. He picks up a needle and thread from the lab bench and gently grips Viktor’s forearm. “Hold still.”

Viktor is silent as Yuuri finishes adjusting the sleeves of his uniform. Uniform, Yuuri thinks, is a strong word. Black is severe on Viktor; his hair looks lighter, somehow, his eyes bluer.

Yuuri is already beginning to regret this.

“Eros?”

“Yeah?”

“Since I’m your henchman now,” Viktor gestures at his new outfit, “we’re a team, aren’t we?”

“Yeah…?”

“So—if I told you a secret—you’d keep it for me, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would. Why? Are you in trouble? Is it Chad? We _can_ murder him.”

“It’s not Chad. Please. As if I would need your help with _that.”_ Viktor bites his lip. “It’s…you won’t tell anyone I helped you, will you? If my family found out…”

Viktor never, ever talks about his family. After that one brief mention of their falling out, he has avoided the subject the way Yuuri avoids questions about ‘that nice young man you’re seeing’ whenever his mom and dad call. Yuuri hasn’t pressed. He figures it must be a hell of a falling out.

“I’ll take it to my grave. But maybe you shouldn’t do it. You could be arrested. Just wandering around New Metro with me is fine, you can always say I made you do it with mind control or whatever—”

“You have mind control?”

“Everyone has mind control, it’s Neural Emulation 101. But that’s not the point. You don’t have to help me.”

“I want to help you.”

Yuuri badly wants to know what it is Viktor is afraid of, but he decides it’s better not to ask. He needs to maintain plausible deniability. That way if Viktor gets arrested Yuuri will be free to rescue him. Instead he just squeezes Viktor’s arm and finishes stitching.

“Okay.” Yuuri nods. “Right, so the plan. It’s pretty simple. We’re gonna distract Chad so we can steal everything we owns.”

“Great, what am I going to do?” Viktor beams. “Do I get a gun? Should I wear a disguise?”

“Uh.”

“What?”

“Ineedyoutobeahostage.”

“Excuse me?”

“I need you to be a hostage, a kidnapping is the easiest way to get Chad’s attention.” Yuuri takes a deep breath. “So, if you could just take off your—”

Before he can finish his sentence Viktor hooks a finger in the collar of his catsuit and unzips it to the waist. Yuuri turns around so fast he gives himself whiplash. He stares, determinedly, at the plans for the kidnapping—a sheet of paper with the word ‘chains???’ written on it and a doodle of Vicchan—until it sounds like Viktor is done.

Viktor is decent when Yuuri turns around. Or at least, he’s wearing clothing that covers everything: a grey tshirt and jeans. Yuuri’s not sure the word ‘decent’ really applies.

“Follow me,” Yuuri says. He leads Viktor out of the lab and down the hall to the elevator, then up to the lair. The lair is actually on the top floor, so that if Chad shows up he won’t wreck the rest of the building. It’s a large, circular room, lit by Tesla coils and blinky lights; one wall is taken up by an enormous and entirely decorative computer console. (Yuuri prefers to give Chad obvious targets to attack.) There is a cushion lying in the middle of the room, under a spotlight, and next to it is a stake embedded in the floor with a length of chain attached to it.

Slowly, Yuuri leads Viktor to the center of the room.

“Right,” he says. “This is my lair.”

“It’s very ominous.”

“Thanks.”

“Well?” Viktor offers Yuuri his wrists, pressed together like they’re bound. “Where do you want me?”

“Here,” Yuuri says, and he puts his hands on Viktor’s shoulders to push him down onto the cushion. He picks up the length of chain and wraps it around Viktor’s wrists. The chains are coated in a polymer designed to reduce chafing, but Yuuri still slips a finger under the links to make sure it’s not too tight. “Pull.”

Viktor does. The chain holds.

“I have to make it look like I roughed you up a little.”

“Just be gentle with me,” Viktor says. He licks his lips. “This is my first time.”

There’s a tube of synthetic blood Yuuri keeps in the lair for kidnappings; it’s never been used. He uncaps it, the sound of the cap popping off loud in the silence, and presses the tip to the corner of Viktor’s mouth. A drop of red bright synthetic blood drips down his face.

“It’s not going to make me break out, is it?”

“No.” Yuuri lets another few drops slide down Viktor’s chin. A long line of scarlet runs from his lips down his throat.  The synthetic blood is entirely edible and tastes like cherry and Yuuri knows this, and all he can think about is licking it away. These are the kind of fucked up fetishes a supervillain education has given him.

He has to get up on his knees to reach Viktor’s head; Viktor bends so that Yuuri can run his fingers through his hair. It’s soft. And Viktor’s hair and skin are light enough that the blood should stand out; Yuuri won’t have to use as much.

“Your hair’s not that thick, so it should be fine.”

“My hair’s not that what?”

“Wait, I didn’t—”

“Is it thinning already? Am I hideous?”

“It’s very thick and shiny!” Yuuri squeezes the tub of synthetic blood too hard and narrowly avoids squirting it all over Viktor. As it is, his hand is now covered in it. It’s going to be a bitch to get out of the leather. He drags a bloody finger down the part in Viktor’s hair. It soaks into his hair, stains his scalp; Yuuri hopes, idly, that Viktor doesn’t end up with pink hair. “There.”

“How do I look?”

“Victimized.”

“So you just want me to sit here and look terrified?”

“To start with,” Yuuri says. “Once Chad actually rescues you, I need you to distract him for as long as you can.”

“I can do that.”

“But don’t do anything dangerous!”

“Why would I do anything dangerous?”

“You hang out with a supervillain,” Yuuri points out. “I’ve seen you put out fires by slapping them. You’re not scared of Chad, Chad’s grunts, that guy who mugged you…I’ve never actually seen you be scared of anything.”

“Eros,” Viktor says, amused, “You aren’t exactly frightening,”

“I have you chained to the floor.” Yuuri hooks a finger in the v-neck of Viktor’s shirt. He tugs and the fabric tears; Yuuri rips it open halfway down Viktor’s torso, revealing a wide expanse of chest, a slice of his stomach. One of his nipples is visible. It’s pink.

He is suddenly very, very glad he and Viktor are on the same side. He’s pretty sure that if Viktor were a hero, he could defeat Yuuri with a wink and some strategic nudity.

 

* * *

 

Chad shows up an hour after Yuuri sends him the ransom demand using his official NSA email address and five minutes after Yuuri gets tired of being blown off and sends the ransom demand to every news station in New Metro. And it takes him a full five minutes because he’s an idiot; Yuuri includes a clue to his lair’s location in the message, as per tradition, but Chad clearly hasn’t read it, because he has to search the city using his super speed and super senses before he finds them.

“Eros!” Chad yells as he busts through the wall, dressed in glowing white and gold, cape fluttering. Cinderblocks go flying. A car in the street outside is crushed; Yuuri makes a mental note to find out whose car that is and to assist with their car insurance claim. “I’m here to defeat you!”

“Oh, really?” Yuuri is sitting on a metal throne in the center of the room. It is not cushioned. His ass hurts. He has the chain around Viktor’s wrists in his hand. “Try it and see what happens to him.” He rattles the chain, just in case Chad has forgotten Viktor is there.

“I can’t believe you’d sink so low as to capture this helpless barista.”

“Barista?” Viktor mutters under his breath. “I make tea.”

“If you’re worried about the barista,” Yuuri says lazily, tapping his crop against the side of his boot, “you can always just surrender. Go ahead and give me the city.” He tugs on the chain again. “We’ll trade.”

“I’ll never surrender,” Chad says. “Hey. Time out.”

Time out? Chad’s never called time out. That’s supposed to be an emergency-only thing. There is absolutely no emergency here. Despite himself, Yuuri is curious; he makes the requisite T with his hands, which doesn’t actually do anything besides turn off a whirring noise in the background being made by a hidden white noise machine.

“What is it?”

“Look, do we have to do this?” Chad asks. “I’m busy tonight. The Chevaliers du Tastevin are meeting. They have a 1988 vintage. And it’s really hard to get stains out of this uniform.”

“Do you have to rescue hostages? I thought that was your job, Chad.”

“I mean, you’re not going to _kill_ him.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Whatever. It’s one person. Everyone has an off day.”

“Are you seriously refusing to rescue me?” Viktor asks. To Yuuri’s delight, he does a credible job of sounding shrill and panicky. “Over _wine?”_

“Tell you what,” Chad says, “you sell me your shop, I’ll rescue you.”

“W-what? But I…”

“Are you seriously blackmailing my hostage,” Yuuri says. “That’s…wow. Amazing. You’re stealing my job. No, he’s not going to sell you anything, you’re going to rescue him fair and square.”

“Yeah?” Chad leans forward, lifting off the ground as he does so that he’s looming over Yuuri. “And if I don’t, what are you going to do about it? What makes you think I can’t get rid of you?”

“What makes you think I actually shut off the recording?” Yuuri leans in so close he can smell Chad’s unfortunate cologne. “What makes you think this isn’t being broadcast all over New Metro right now?”

The look on Chad’s face is epic. Yuuri’s never seen anyone look more like a man caught masturbating in a public place before.

“You can’t do that. You wouldn’t do that.”

“You’re right, I bribed the news stations not to air it. For now. Unless you decide to keep being a dick about this, in which case I guess I have no choice but to release it. You know. For the public good.”

“Villains don’t care about the public good!”

“Apparently neither do you,” Viktor mutters.

“Fine, I’ll take him home!” Chad fires a laser beam from his eyes to cut the chain and grabs Viktor by the arm. “I’m not going to forget this, Eros.”

Yuuri just shrugs. He’s not going to lay any money out on Chad’s ability to retain information, or plot an effective revenge. Besides, if anything happens to Yuuri, Phichit will lose his shit, corporations will cease to exist, heads will roll, etc. He leans back in his throne, wincing, as Chad flies back out of the hole he made coming in, Viktor in his arms. Viktor doesn’t look happy about it.

One of the bots follows them in stealth mode, just in case. Okay. Maybe it’s more like an entire swarm of robots. Yuuri is very concerned about Viktor’s safety.

Which leaves Yuuri to finish carrying out the plan. The rest of the bots are already in position, most of them already stealing from Chad under the cover of holograms designed to fool Chad’s super senses. All Yuuri has to do is go finish it off. But first…

He pulls up the footage of Chad being an incredibly douchey hero and hits send. The whole bit with the bribes was a lie, of course. Yuuri hadn’t expected Chad to be so stupid. He’d figured they’d banter, mock-fight, Viktor would get rescued, commence theft. But since he has the footage, why not use it?

Yuuri hits send. Every news station in the country is about to get the recording. He figures that should keep Chad busy for a long, long time.

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” he whispers. “Vitya. You awake?”

There’s the rustle of bedclothes, and then Viktor, dressed in matching pajamas with tiny poodles on them, appears. He leans out of the open window and rubs at his eyes.

“Eros?” Viktor blinks. “Is that a flying motorcycle?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. “Did you have any trouble with Chad?”

“I made him stay and guard me for an hour in case you came back,” Viktor says. “There were some ISU agents waiting for him by the time I let him leave. I doubt you’ll see him any time soon.”

Yuuri nods. “You wanna go for a ride?”

“Let me get dressed.”

He leaves; Yuuri grips the handlebars of his hovercycle, trying not to feel nervous. It’s only a late night ride. He’s just showing Viktor the fruits of his evil labor. Nothing suspect about it.

Viktor comes back wearing the henchman uniform. He climbs out of the window and onto the back of Yuuri’s bike, where he winds his arms around Yuuri. It’s completely unnecessary; the catsuit is designed to magnetize to the bike to keep him from falling off and there’s a built in localized force field that acts as a helmet. Viktor’s hair is loose. Yuuri can feel it tickling the back of his neck. In what might be the most villainous thing he’s done all night, Yuuri does not tell Viktor that he doesn’t have to hold on.

“Hold on,” he says, and lets go of the brake. The bike accelerates.

The night is cool and the city lights blur as they fly. New Metro looks different after dark, everything edged in the golden light of streetlamps and signs and storefronts. They’re too high to hear the noise of the city; it’s as if the lights below are just the stars above, fallen down to earth.

Yuuri passes out of the city limits, over the acres and acres of lawn that surround Chad’s home—it’s mostly grass with the occasional overly landscaped flowerbed, what a waste of space and water—until he reaches the mansion itself. Or rather, the place where the mansion used to be; it’s mostly gone now, and the bots are emptying out the basement, carrying bottles of expensive wine out into the back of a temperature controlled truck. Yuuri’s going to give them to Phichit; Phichit will enjoy auctioning them off.

“When you said you were going to steal everything he owned,” Viktor says, “I didn’t realize you would go this far.”

“You like it?”

“It’s very impressive.” Viktor’s grip tightens around his waist. Yuuri shivers.

“Come on,” he says. “I want to show you something.”

They get off the bike. Yuuri holds Viktor’s hand as they walk towards the house. Viktor lets him. The bots that aren’t clearing out the basement have started assembly on the south side of the house; some of then are running new wiring, some of them are roughing in plumbing, and some of them are putting up the new wall.

The wall is made of glass.

“What are you building here?” Viktor asks. “A new lair?”

“It’s going to be a greenhouse.” Yuuri clears his throat and tries very hard to not sound awkward. “The soil quality here isn’t bad, either, if you wanted to grow a garden outside. There’s room in the basement, too, if you wanted to store things. Process the plants.”

“Make tea.”

“I was gonna put it on the roof of your shop. But Chad doesn’t own that condo anymore, and I figured this would give you more room.”

Viktor is staring, open mouthed, at the beginnings of the greenhouse. His grip on Yuuri’s hand is tight, and Yuuri can’t read his expression: is he happy? Upset? Does he even like it?

“You have to give me your matcha now.”

“I’m not giving you my matcha,” Viktor says, and a smile spreads across his face like a firework bursting. “If I give it to you, how will I convince you to come see me?”

“Vitya.” Yuuri swallows. “You know I don’t come for the tea, right?”

“Yes,” Viktor says. “I do know.”

Yuuri doesn’t know exactly what happens next. When he thinks about it, later, he won’t be able to piece together the exact order of events. One moment he’s looking in Viktor’s eyes and the next Viktor is kissing him, his hand on the back of Yuuri’s head. It’s as if a circuit has been completed; something warm bursts inside Yuuri, in vicinity of his heart. He’s holding onto Viktor so hard.

They stand there kissing until something shatters loudly. Yuuri tries to jerk away to investigate and can’t; his and Viktor’s suits have apparently decided this is an emergency and magnetized, holding them pressed against each other.

One of the bots has broken a bottle of wine. Possibly on purpose; it zooms over and butts Viktor’s leg until he pets it. Clearly they’re getting spoiled. I should do something about that, Yuuri thinks, even as he knows he never will.

“This is a nice surprise,” Viktor says, tracing Yuuri’s lips with his thumb.

“You like surprises.”

“I do.”

“You look good in leather,” Yuuri says, and he feels the breath of Viktor’s laugh against his face. He runs a hand down Viktor’s back, slowly, just to confirm that Viktor’s body feels the way it looks.

Seducing a henchman violates the NSA Code of Villain Conduct. As Viktor kisses him again, one hand sliding down to grope him, Yuuri makes a mental note to add this to his Affidavit of Villainous Activity. Maybe they’ll get a commendation together. He bets Viktor will like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are much appreciated! i'd like to finish this so that i can devote some time to my neglected wips, like telepath viktor and pokemon au...


	5. 'cause you make me feel like

_Right,_ Yuuri tells himself. _Three step plan. Walk in, ask him to eat with you, leave._ There is no room to fuck that up. The shop isn’t open yet, but the front door’s lock poses no problems. Yuuri flicks his magnetized fingers at it to turn the mechanism and lets himself in.

Viktor and Chris are already there, making preparations for opening. It’s dimmer inside than it is outside; in the gloom (and with the help of cloaking technology), Yuuri blends into the shadows. The door falls noiselessly shut behind him. Yuuri has never really talked to Chris—he isn’t normally at the shop in the mornings—and he’s not really sure he wants to.

He can hear them talking. _Go inside,_ he tells himself. _Stop being weird about it._

And Yuuri means to say something, he does, just so he’s not lurking awkwardly like a stalker, but then he hears his name.

“How are things with Eros?”

“Very good.”

“Was it expensive?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Oh, come on. It is like that. What did he buy you?”

“I don’t think he actually spent any money,” Viktor says. This is technically true, in that Yuuri outright stole all Chad’s shit by forging a lot of paperwork and with the help of his swarm of sentient robots. “Eros is very resourceful that way.”

“And you’re not worried he’s trying to buy you? He’s clearly lubing you up.”

“Excuse me?”

“Metaphorically. He’s a villain, right? He’s not exactly ideal boyfriend material. So he gives you nice things to make the bad parts easier to swallow.”

“I don’t _want_ metaphors,” Viktor says, whining. He starts stacking teacups on a shelf. “I want him to bend me over the hood of his car and fuck me until I choke on it.”

_Yuuri_ chokes. Luckily, he’s still invisible, so no one notices.

Actually, Viktor is looking in his direction. Yuuri makes an executive decision: this is the absolute worst time to ask Viktor on a date. This is the worst time to be anywhere where he might accidentally tell Viktor that Yuuri is one hundred percent down to bend him over his pink convertible and fuck him until they dent the hood. Not that Yuuri has thought about this or anything. At no point has Yuuri ever ergonomically designed, say, an entire vehicle, purely to maximize the fucking potential.

(Sexual frustration is a hell of a drug.)

 

* * *

 

“Can’t you just go get a drink with him?”

“No!” Yuuri nearly stabs himself with the soldering iron. “Shit!”

“Why?”

“Because that’s a shitty date!”

“Remind me why you can’t just bring him over?” Phichit asks. He is doing something to Amazon’s search algorithms. Possibly he is going to make sure his least favorite brand of hamster food is never a sponsored search result again.

“What, and show him my lab?” Yuuri makes the executive decision to not mention the sex dungeon. He only built that to get extra credit in his Advanced Bondage seminar. It doesn’t count, Yuuri has hardly ever brought people back there.

“I brought Chris here,” Phichit says. “It went fine. His ass is amazing, just so you know. Can you steal all the Monster cables from Best Buy?”

“Why do you need Monster cables? You hate them.”

“I’m thinking about taking up sculpting.”

“…with cables?” Yuuri finishes the repair on the printer and closes it. He taps the keyboard to start the diagnostic. It had better start working soon; Yuuri needs to print off a burner credit card for tonight’s plans.

“Look, it’s not like they’re doing any good on the shelves.”

“The bots will eat some of them.”

“That’s fine.”

Yuuri whistles. Katsubot 39 zooms out from under the bench where Yuuri is working. It beeps at him, twice, and hovers around him until he pets it; then it flies off, presumably to tell the other bots that it’s Best Buy Burglary time. At some point, he’s definitely going to have to consider whether science has gone too far.

 

* * *

 

Viktor’s apartment building is woefully unprotected.  The security is like a cheap condom and the katsubots slide in like some particularly vigorous sperm. They deactivate the cameras, unlock the doors, set up a perimeter.

(Yuuri has had security on the block, of course, but he’s avoided patrolling the inside of the building unless the bots are dropping off packages. It makes him feel less creepy.)

Yuuri’s last date was pre-villainy, back when he was a lowly engineer, the ink on his diploma still drying. It feels like a lifetime ago that he had any kind of normal: a job in an office, a studio apartment near the subway station, being able to walk through the city without a disguise. When he’d taken on the prosthetics project, he’d worked hundred hour weeks and had no time for interaction. When that ended, he’d been on the run. His supervillain training had presented plenty of opportunities to have sex but not many for romance—not, Yuuri could admit, that he had been particularly interested.

Viktor’s the first person Yuuri’s met that he’s wanted to keep.

The hoverjet’s door lines up neatly with Viktor’s bedroom window. Yuuri tries the window; it’s unlocked. He sweeps dust off his clothes, pushes back his hair one last time, and climbs into the apartment.

The bedroom is empty. Yuuri frowns—villainy is just less cool in a brightly lit living room—before he steps out into the hall. All the lights are out. The air smells of roses.

_Weird,_ Yuuri thinks. _Maybe Viktor’s really into scented candles? Should I rob a Hallmark store?_

Viktor is waiting for him in the living room. Yuuri knows he’s been waiting because he’s standing in the center of the room in a way that is clearly rehearsed.

Viktor in black only reminds Yuuri of Viktor in a catsuit, and even if it didn’t, everything about Viktor’s suit—from the matching tie to the gleaming cuff links to the perfect creases—makes him look expensive. Luxurious. _Hot._ The lone light in the room is a single flickering candle, which only makes the black blacker and Viktor’s hair paler. And there’s a bouquet of roses lying beside the candle.

Yuuri is suddenly very glad he’s wearing a stretchy and breathable fabric. Because he is sweating like he’s in a sauna and he suddenly needs a lot more room in his pants.

“You’re late.”

“Evil never arrives on time.”

Viktor presents him with the roses. “For you.”

“Thanks.” They smell incredible.

“I picked them out especially to match.”

_Match what,_ Yuuri nearly says. He has no idea what Viktor is talking about, unless he mysteriously predicted that both the lining of Yuuri’s carefully draped half-cape and his lipstick today were going to be red. Instead he tucks the roses under his arm.

“I made us dinner reservations,” Yuuri says. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

Viktor looks starving. Though, judging by the way he’s eying Yuuri, who is taller than he is in heels, he’s not thinking about dinner. That’s fine. Yuuri’s not really thinking about dinner, either. He just thinks they should go out on at least one real date before they test out the fuckability of Viktor’s car.

He takes Viktor to the hoverjet, closing and locking the window behind them. Makkachin is asleep on Viktor’s bed, and two of the bots have decided to charge there beside her. The hoverjet’s doors slide shut behind them with a hiss; the lights inside turn on slowly.

The inside of the jet is pure luxury: buttery leather seating with built-in heaters, plush carpet, an automated bar and kitchen. Yuuri’s already set out champagne on ice and two glasses; as Viktor looks admiring around the interior, and the jet starts to rise, Yuuri pours out a measure for them both. Their hands brush as he passes Viktor his; Viktor is wearing gloves. They’re the gloves Yuuri made for him, the ones that are made exactly the way Yuuri’s are: black, sinfully soft leather. He shouldn’t be able to feel the heat of Viktor’s hand through two layers of fabric, but Yuuri’s skin still tingles where they touch.

By unspoken agreement, they both down their glasses quickly.

“Hey,” Yuuri says, and when Viktor turns to look at him Yuuri puts a hand on the back of his neck and pulls him for a kiss. He can feel Viktor wraps his arms around him; the mesh paneling on Yuuri’s catsuit is so thin it might as well be nonexistent.

“Hey.”

Viktor lets Yuuri lead him over to the couch and push him down onto it. He sits down next to Viktor, so close their thighs are pressed together. Viktor slides an arm over his shoulders. He’s warm.

“Business is good?”

“Very good. Makkachin gave out samples today at lunchtime and by the end of the day I sold out of two of the summer blends. I’ll have to start another batch soon.” Viktor produces a packet of loose tea, tied off with a ribbon and holds it out. “I saved this much for you.”

Yuuri inhales. It smells good; he’s developed a weird affinity for the smell of tea.

“Lime and rose?”

“Exactly! You’re getting good at this.” Viktor beams. “It’s refreshing. You can mix it with tequila.”

“I—you _what.”_

“Try it!”

“What did tequila ever do to you?” Yuuri asks. He’s horrified. Has no one explained to Viktor that there are beverages to which tea should not be added? “What’s this one called? Ruining Tequila Tea?”

“Minor Computer Repair.”

“What?”

“That’s what it’s called. An IT firm down the street bought twenty pounds of it.”

That is weirdly specific. How does tea even taste like computer repair? How does computer repair even have a taste other than sadness and linoleum? What does any of that have to do with summer? He tucks the tea into a concealed pocket. He’ll have to try it later. _I could ask Phichit to try it,_ Yuuri thinks, but his heart revolts. This is his tea. Maybe he’ll lick a broken monitor for comparison.

“Hey,” Viktor asks, craning his neck to look around the cabin, “where are we?” There are windows on the hoverjet, which Yuuri has strategically blacked out to keep their destination a surprise. Also, because the landscape blurring past at Mach 10 tends to freak people out.

“You’ll see.”

“That sounds evil.”

“I mean, I did involve you in my evil plans,” Yuuri muses. A wisp of hair has come loose from Viktor’s ponytail; Yuuri pushes it behind Viktor’s ear. He leans into Yuuri’s hand like a cat. “And I pretended to kidnap you. And now I’ve actually kidnapped you.”

“Oh, no,” Viktor says solemnly. His face is very close again. “I’m so scared. Who knows what evil things you might—mmph!”

Yuuri is really glad the couch on the hoverjet is so long. There’s plenty of room to lie on top of Viktor and kiss him. Lip gloss is going to end up all over Yuuri’s face, but it’s fine, ravishing his hostage in his hoverjet during a kidnapping can only add to his villainous cred.

“Why do you wear lip gloss everyday?”

“I wasn’t allowed to when I was a teen,” Viktor says breathlessly. “How tall are you?”

“What?”

“You wear heels. How tall are you?”

“I—do you want imperial or metric?” Viktor looks so deeply offended that Yuuri backtracks. “A hundred and seventy-three centimeters.”

“I’m taller than you are.”

“That’s why I wear heels all the time.” Every major villain at the academy was taller than Yuuri is. Yuuri compensates with stilettos (which always seem to freak the Chads of the world out) and reminding himself that Phichit is shorter than he and is still a shadow government unto himself. Even Yuuri’s practical shoes have really thick soles. “Gotta be intimidating.”

“Very intimidating,” Viktor says breathlessly. He tugs Yuuri back down.

The next fifteen minutes pass very pleasantly. When the plane comes to a smooth stop, Yuuri almost regrets not making it slower, or at least programming the autopilot to fly them around the mountain a couple times if they were…occupied.

“We’re here.”

“Do we have to?” Viktor asks. He squirms. They’re both hard and Yuuri can feel Viktor’s dick right there, which is a compelling argument. But it’s cold enough outside that Yuuri’s erection will probably subside, so he shakes his head.

“You’ll like it,” Yuuri promises.

He rolls off Viktor. A hidden closet has opened; he retrieves Viktor’s fur coat and his own Voldemort-esque cloak. Once he’s helped Viktor into his coat, Yuuri gestures, and the hoverjet door slowly opens. A ramp unfolds. In honor of the occasion, Yuuri’s even laid down a red carpet.

Viktor squints. “Is that snow?”

Out the jet, the wind is blowing like the breath of yetis; there are snowdrifts piled three, four meters high around. The path up to the restaurant is marked by torches burning green and blue. _How do they keep them from going out?_ Yuuri wonders. _Is that real fire or a hologram? Maybe I should steal one. He offers Viktor his arm._

They make their way up the icy path. Viktor is surprisingly surefooted, Yuuri notes, though he does have the advantage of not wearing stilettos.

“Welcome,” Yuuri says. Before them are the double doors, set into the side of the mountain, torches burning bright red on either side. The doors are locked, and Yuuri has to spend a minute picking the lock and disarming the bomb before he can open them. Do hero-only restaurants have this problem? “To Ice Castle."

 

* * *

 

The service at Ice Castle is terrifyingly efficient. As soon as he and Viktor have found and secured—literally secured, Ice Castle operates under a ‘if you want it, steal it’ policy for seating—a good table, a waiter appears with glasses of ice water and menus.

“Oh my god,” their waiter, a tiny, teleporting boy with a snaggletooth and huge eyes, says. “You’re Eros!”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. He opens his menu. “Do you have a wine list?”

“I’m a huge fan! You’re my villainous idol! Do you need a henchman? I am so down.”

“…uh.” Yuuri swallows. Has he seen this kid before? They look vaguely familiar, though Yuuri has very little to do with the training of new villains. He only ever sees the trainees at events where the NSA is using them as gophers and here, where the NSA uses them as waitstaff. “Is that a no on the wine list, or…?”

“I’ll get it right now! I will not disappoint you.” Excited Waiter Boy disappears in a puff of yellow smoke and reappears a couple seconds later with two wine lists. “Just ring me if you need anything. I’ll be waiting.”

Yuuri sighs with relief as soon as they’re alone. He sets down his menu and grins at Viktor across the table. Ice Castle is extremely fancy, the kind of thing Yuuri assumed Viktor would enjoy; other than the risk of being robbed by a fellow villain, it’s one of the best restaurants in the world. Every Michelin inspector that has been there (willingly or otherwise) has rated it highly. The floors are polished wood. The chandeliers have real crystal in them. Someone is playing the violin in the background.

Viktor does not look happy. Viktor is frowning at Yuuri like Yuuri just kicked a puppy.

“Eros.”

“What?”

“Why were you so mean to him?”

“I wasn’t mean to him.”

“You were mean to him. He admires you and you didn’t even acknowledge him. You should have offered him an autograph or something.”

“I—I don’t—we’re on a date!”

“You know who else is rude to waitstaff? _Chad.”_

Having delivered the most brutal comeback _of all time_ , Viktor proceeds to ignore Yuuri in favor of the view. The view outside consists of snow, snow, and more snow.

_What about Viktor being rude to me?_ Yuuri flails internally; he was prepared to be attacked by sentient plant tentacles but not for this. _Is he going to ignore me the entire time? Maybe he’ll get sick of…who am I kidding, he definitely won’t._

By the time Excited Waiter Boy makes his return with their drinks, the awkward silence has become physically painful and Yuuri has finished his entire glass of water. EWB refills it as he chatters away.

“—and I modeled my costume after your first catsuit, with the pleats—”

“Oh god, not the pleats,” Yuuri blurts out. “I hated those.”

“You…you did?”

“Yeah, they were really—” Yuuri trails off as EWB tears up.

“How can you say that to me? I worked so hard to be just like you! Fine! From this day forward you’re my nemesis!”  He slams their starter—a bowl of fresh bread and a selection of flavored olive oils—onto the table. “I, Mean Minami, will defeat you someday!” He sniffs. “Can I take your order?”

“Yes,” Viktor says loudly. “We are going to have drinks. If you could take this tea—” he hands Mean Minami (Mean Minami?!) a packet of Minor Computer Repair, “and brew iced tea, then add lime and lemon juice, simple syrup, fresh fruit, and tequila. And I’ll have the filet mignon. Please.”

“I’ll have the parmesan mac and cheese,” Yuuri says automatically. Yuuri’s default order in any stressful restaurant situation is to order the cheesiest pasta. Especially now, when he’s apparently going to have to drink lime rose tea with tequila in it. “Uh. Please.”

“I’ll get that right out for you,” Minami says. He flickers just slightly; Yuuri barely catches it. “Can I get you anything else?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“You can give me back my wallet,” Yuuri says. He doesn’t bother actually checking. His wallet’s the only thing in a pocket that’s easily accessible.

Minami turns bright red. “I don’t have your wallet,” he says, way too loudly. Clearly he’s great at high-speed teleportation but terrible at lying. “Mr. Eros—”

Yuuri reaches out and yanks his wallet out of Minami’s pocket. He flips it open; all the cash is gone.

“That was a good lift,” Yuuri says. “But you might want to do it when you arrive, not when you leave. People will be distracted by the food.”

“Yes, sir!” Minami starts to fumble in an inside pocket for what Yuuri assumes is Yuuri’s money. “I—”

“Keep it.” Yuuri waves him off. “I’ll get it back later.”

“You—you will?”

“Well, yeah,” Yuuri says. He determinedly does not look at Viktor. “You’re my nemesis, right? Now it’s my turn to rob you.”

Minami’s eyes are the size of dinner plates.

“Yes, sir! I’ll be ready!” He bows and nearly hits his head on the table. “I’ll get your food!”

Tea or not, Yuuri really needs a drink now. He gulps down some of his fruity tequila tea. It is every bit as terrible as he though it would be. _I can’t believe I have fans,_ Yuuri thinks. _That kid really wants to be me? I guess my date is really hot._

Viktor is smiling at him when Yuuri finally dares to look. “So,” he says. “You never told me—what do you do with all the excess silicon from the matter converter?”

Visions of the veritable ocean of sex toys he and Phichit have made flash before Yuuri’s eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im tired and depressed right now and your comments are highly appreciated


	6. i could be driving you all night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry

The food at Ice Castle is even more delicious than usual, or maybe that’s just Yuuri’s brain sublimating all the sexual tension into the part of his brain that gets the signals from his tastebuds. The parmesan mac and cheese is hot and salty, topped off with breadcrumbs and vodka sauce. There’s no attempt to ‘make it healthy’ by throwing on some chicken that no one actually wants. Yuuri is opposed to adding lean chicken to fatty foods to stave off guilt. If he’s feeling guilty, he doesn’t need the insult of bits of underseasoned chicken breast, he needs them to melt four kinds of cheese over homemade pasta and serve it to him in what looks like a fancy mixing bowl.

Across the table, Viktor is enjoying his steak with what looks like near-sexual pleasure. His eyes are closed while he chews. Sometimes he makes noises and Yuuri has to distract him by shoving pasta into his mouth, which is why he’s eaten half his bowl while Viktor’s eaten a quarter of a steak and a few bites of kale.

Kale. Viktor likes kale. Yuuri’s in love with a man who enjoys kale. He can’t believe this. Maybe this is why Viktor doesn’t eat, because he has a weird alien tongue and can’t enjoy normal, delicious food.

“I studied engineering,” Yuuri explains. “I was okay at it, I guess. I got a decent job out of college after a professor recommended me, but, uh…I ended up a villain instead.”

“Does the NSA assign villain names or do you get to choose? Do they have guidelines?”

“Nah, they let you do what you want.”

Maybe the ISU has guidelines about names. Viktor knows a lot about the inner workings of ISU.

“Eros doesn’t have anything to do with engineering, though.” Viktor steeples his fingers. “Why did you choose that?”

Yuuri didn’t exactly choose it; it was given to him, it stuck, and it seemed cooler than anything Yuuri could come up with on his own. And Yuuri had wanted a villain name that wasn’t obvious, since he is still wanted for some engineering-adjacent crimes. The only bad thing about having a sexy villain name, other than the fact Yuuri isn’t that sexy, is that he had to explain it to his parents. Mari is still roasting him for it.

“It just turned out that way,” Yuuri mutters.

“I suppose what you meant doesn’t matter, though. Once you’re in front of the public, they get to decide your image.” Viktor taps his lip. “You’re popular with supervillain fans, did you know?”

“I…what?”

Yuuri did not know that. Yuuri has all supervillain fandom blocked on all his devices. Yuuri was in the superhero/supervillain fandom before he became a super himself, and all the Nicephorus fanfiction he wrote still exists because Phichit changed his AO3 password and won’t tell Yuuri what it is.

He knows exactly what kind of nonsense the fans are up to and he wants no part of it.

“The popular fanfictions aren’t very accurate, though. I left a strongly worded review.”

“Please never do that again.”

“I’ll stop reading fanfiction if you tell me your origin story.”

“You tell me your origin story first,” Yuuri says. Viktor blanches; his hand jerks and his piece of steak falls back onto his plate. Yuuri watches him take a long draught of his terrible cocktail and winces. “…never mind. Sorry.”

“This is so good,” Viktor says. “Much better than The Good Grille.”

“…the what?’

“Nothing.”

“…do superheroes have their own restaurant?” Yuuri asks. He leans forward. “How do you know this? Is it vegan?”

“It’s paleo,” Viktor replies. “I mean, it would be, if I knew anything about it, which I don’t.”

“Paleo isn’t a real thing!”

“Neither are the ISU’s morals.”

“The Good Grille,” Yuuri whispers. It’s so on the nose that Yuuri couldn’t have made it up. “That is so bad. Where is it?”

“I told you, I know absolutely nothing.”

“If you did, hypothetically, know, where would it be?”

“Mmm.” Viktor rests his chin on his palm. He winks. “The Cayman Islands.”

“What’s on the menu?” Is it Yuuri’s imagination, or does Viktor wince? Isn’t the Cayman Islands where he sends that suspicious monthly payment? Yuuri sets that thought aside for later.

“It’s mostly smoothies and unseasoned chicken breast. They have protein powder instead of salt shakers on the tables.”

Yuuri literally cannot imagine willingly consuming protein powder, which tastes like chalk and sadness. Mostly he makes up for his garbage diet with high intensity acts of villainy. He used to skip meals when he was distracted, but he and Viktor have been eating together often enough that Yuuri feels stupid doing the thing he keeps telling Viktor not to do.

He wonders if Chad is eating protein powder-laden mystery meat right now in an ISU holding cell. He hopes so, Chad definitely deserves it.

“I’ve never been to the Caymans,” Viktor muses. “Have you? You don’t seem like a beach person.”

“I’m actually from a seaside town in Japan,” Yuuri admits. “New Metro is okay, but I miss the ocean.”

“So do I. Especially the sound of the gulls…”

“…it reminds you of home?”

“Something like that.”

Yuuri pictures a map of Russia in his head, narrowing it down to places on the coast. St. Petersburg, maybe. He doesn’t know if Viktor was born in Russia, but he must have lived there for a while to still have the accent and the total inability to feel cold.

He watches Viktor eat and tries to imagine him as a child, maybe with terrible bowl cut hair and a puffy jacket. Viktor’s complete silence on his family, his past, and his entire life prior to his arrival in New Metro can’t help but make Yuuri wonder if it was a happy childhood. Does he dare ask? Will Viktor tell him?

“I grew up in Russia, but I moved here from Primopolis.”

“Primopolis?”

Primopolis is where Nicephorus was based. Yuuri leans across the table excitedly; he’s been to Primopolis, of course, in disguise so he could do he  Fan Society’s walking tour. He’s been to the Museum of Heroes where Nicephorus has his own wing, and touched the cape they have on display there, and stood under the statue of Nicephorus in front of ISU headquarters while drawing up plans for katsubot upgrades. (He gave them longer arms.)

He’s still kind of disappointed he and Phichit couldn’t set up shop there, but it would have been too dangerous. Primopolis has the highest concentration of heroes in the world.

“There’s a lot of cool stuff in Primopolis.”

“I was lonely there.”

“You were?”

Viktor looks tenderly at him, like he’s a baby bird Yuuri’s just dropped back into the nest. “I was. New Metro is much friendlier.”

“That’s good,” Yuuri says. His heart is pounding. “I don’t want you to be lonely. Did you—” he scrambles for words; everything he wants to say seems like too much. “Did you ever go to the Nicephorus shrine?”

“Ugh, I hate that,” Viktor says. “Why is it in the middle of the road? Traffic in Primopolis is bad as it is.”

“It’s meaningful.”

“It’s trite and awful.”

“Nicephorus is a hero—he’s done so much good in the world—”

“Lots of people are doing good in the world! You do plenty of good in the world, but no one’s building shrines to you.”

Yuuri’s face feels like he’s just dipped his head in lava. Him? Do good in the world? Yuuri should probably be offended, that’s the antithesis of Yuuri’s entire job, but…oh. Compliments from Viktor go straight to the pleasure center of Yuuri’s brain.

“I steal shit.”

“Do you really think Chad did anything heroic? And the city pays him a salary.”

“Wait, they what?” Yuuri sputters. “He accepted a salary? He has a trust fund!”

“So what?”

That voice. Yuuri closes his eyes—he really wants this to be some kind of weird, stress-induced auditory hallucination—but nope, that’s Chad Chadwick, aka The Amazing Chad, dramatically descending from overhead. He’s wearing a costume with even more gold braid than usually. Did someone tell Chad a braided gold codpiece was a good choice? Did he piss off whoever does his costuming?

Chad drops down until he’s hovering beside Viktor. Viktor is sitting down, so even standing on the ground like a normal person Chad’d be taller than he was. So either Chad realizes he’s in danger and is floating so he can flee faster, or he’s under the impression the extra couple inches somehow makes him intimidating.

The extra height, like the extra gold braid, just makes him looking like he’s trying way too hard. The only hero allowed to wear gold is Nicephorus, and not just because Yuuri has a hologram of Nicephorus in his lair where Nicephorus is shirtless and his emblem is visible over his right hip in gleaming gold and maybe Yuuri has masturbated to it on more than one occasion.

(Viktor would look good in gold, too, Yuuri thinks.)

“Fifty million dollars sounds like a lot of money,” Chad continues, “but after property taxes, yacht maintenance, all the basics, I barely have twenty million left.”

Yuuri’s not even going to touch that.

“Weren’t you in prison?”

“My father is a member of the ISU Disciplinary Board,” Chad says. “He says it’s obvious that I was making a clever ploy to defeat you.”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says. “You defeated _me._ That’s why I stole all your stuff and you were dragged off to jail.”

“You’re spending thirty million dollars a year on yacht maintenance but you won’t pay for your own fucking drinks?” Viktor asks. “Yacht maintenance? How many yachts do you have?”

“Maybe if you got a real job instead of making smoothies you could afford a yacht.”

“I make _tea!”_

“Shut up! I’m here to rescue you.” Chad grabs the back of Viktor’s chair. Yuuri freezes, hand on his weapon; the suit is designed to enhance his reflexes, so he can probably get a shot off before Chad actually does anything to Viktor. Like touch him. Or look at him. Or breathe Viktor’s air.

“Rescue me.” Viktor looks down at his plate. “Oh, yes. Steak and kale. Terrifying.”

“What do you think is going to happen to you after dinner, Vlad?”

Yuuri opens his mouth to correct Chad, realizes he doesn't actually want Chad to know Viktor’s name, and shuts up.

“We’ll have dessert?” Viktor sips at his tea and tequila.

“The only dessert you’re going to get is his dick in your mouth,” Chad says. He fries Viktor’s steak with his laser eyes. Why he’s trying to intimidate the guy he’s supposed to be saving, Yuuri has no idea. That’s why Chad ended up in prison in the first place. Yuuri’s going to have to embezzle all the taxpayer’s money spent on Chad just on principle. “Is that what you want? You want to be tied up and forced to give this villain a blowjob?”

“Jesus, yes,” Viktor says. Yuuri chokes so hard he nearly bites through his own tongue. “I’ve been practicing. My lips are so moisturized.”

He’s been practicing? That’s…that’s a mental image Yuuri definitely needed in his life. Practicing how? Practicing on what? Or on _who?_ (Does Yuuri need to spread the word that anyone who hits on Viktor dies?) Yuuri has a lot of questions. A lot of sexy, sexy questions.

“…what?” Chad says. He’s doing his best imitation of a goldfish that’s fallen out of its bowl. “But I came all this way to rescue you! You’re supposed to be grateful! Do you have any idea what I gave up to be here?” He’s turned an interesting shade of red. Yuuri decides Chad is sufficiently distracted; he feels under the table for the panic button.

The Good Grille has protein; Ice Castle has paranoia.

“Absolutely nothing?”

“I was at the ISU Honors dinner. But Dad says he’s not going to give me my allowance until I’m off probation,” Chad snarls, “so can we please leave? My caviar is getting cold.”

 _“You_ leave,” Viktor says. “You realize there are people who actually need your help?”

“Okay, I tried being nice, but you’ve obviously been brainwashed—” Chad picks up Viktor’s chair, which tilts alarmingly.

Yuuri slams the panic button. “Intruder alert!” he yells as a siren starts wailing overhead. All the lights in the restaurant turn red. NSA protocol states that red lighting is a warning; in ten seconds the entire restaurant will go dark. Chad looks around wildly; apparently, it hadn’t occurred to him that a villain-run restaurant would have anti-hero measures. _Ten,_ Yuuri counts off… _seven…four…now._

Chad yelps loudly and drops the chair, clutching his hand like it’s on fire.

Yuuri lunges, kicking the table out of the way; Viktor slides out of the chair and right into Yuuri’s arms. “Come on,” Yuuri says, fumbling for Viktor’s hand; he has night vision contacts in, but to Viktor it must be pitch dark. “Hold on to me.”

“What about Chad?”

“Don’t worry about him.” Yuuri can smell something burning. “He’s about to have way bigger problems than you.”

He guides Viktor out of the restaurant—though Viktor doesn’t trip once and he keeps up easily, so really they’re just holding hands—until they reach the doors. The doors are locked, but Yuuri uses the destroy setting on his gun to blow them open. Outside, the jet is already there, black and red amidst the swirling snow.

One of the bots is waiting for them as the doors open. It has Viktor’s jacket and gloves.

“Good boy,” Yuuri says. He pats it on the head as it joins them on the jet and the doors start to close behind them. This is why Yuuri doesn’t like movies about AI being evil. AI is great. AI is contributing to the increasing likelihood that Viktor’s going to blow him.

“Chad won’t follow us, will he?”

“I don’t think he can, Ice Castle has force fields.” Yuuri shrugs. “And we really don’t like it when heroes show up there, you know? Plus the trainees will be trying to prove themselves.”

“So we’re alone on this jet.”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no chance I’ll escape,” Viktor continues. He starts taking off his tie. “Who knows. All kinds of terrible things might happen to me.”

Yuuri grabs the ends of Viktor’s undone tie and hauls him in. The katsubot makes itself scarce as Yuuri shoves Viktor up against the nearest wall—Viktor’s ponytail comes untied— and buries his hands in Viktor’s hair and starts kissing him. Viktor gropes at Yuuri’s back; he unzips Yuuri’s catsuit to the small of his back. Yuuri’s not wearing anything underneath.

“Your hands are freezing,” Yuuri says as Viktor’s icy fingers skirt over his skin.

“My mouth is warm,” Viktor says. _That is a tragically bad line,_ Yuuri thinks, but who is he to talk? He’s falling for it.

“I can’t believe you told Chad you wanted to blow me.”

“You should be flattered, I’ve never actually blown anyone.”

“That’s weird,” Yuuri says. He should probably say something else to reassure Viktor but Viktor’s mouth is right there for kissing and Yuuri can’t resist.

“Is it?”

“Yeah, in twenty-seven years you should have met someone with decent taste.” Yuuri starts unbuttoning Viktor’s shirt; he has to hunch over to kiss the slice of exposed chest, but Yuuri’s willing to make sacrifices. “Okay. You have five minutes.”

“Why—” Viktor’s nails dig into Yuuri’s back, “why five?”

“Because that’s how long it’ll take us to get back to New Metro,” Yuuri says, as he strips Viktor’s suit jacket and shirt off of him, “and when we get there I’m going to fuck you on top of your car.”

“And you say you never do any good in the world.”

Viktor drops down to his knees and buries his face between Yuuri’s legs, mouthing at him through the fabric. Yuuri fumbles open the front of his catsuit and then grabs Viktor’s hair in gloved hands.

“Wow,” Viktor says. “That fanart was more accurate than I expected.”

Yuuri’s always prided himself on his stamina, but in five minutes Viktor ruins them both. There’s no technique, just Viktor sloppily sucking on Yuuri’s cock while he jerks off whatever he can’t fit in his mouth. He hangs onto Yuuri’s thigh like Yuuri might escape. Drool runs down Viktor’s chin, his loose sticks to his face—Yuuri holds it back as best he can—Viktor looks up at him, pupils blown with excitement. He digs his thumb into Viktor’s hollowed-out cheek. He can feel his cock inside Viktor’s hot mouth if he pushes down.

 _Thank god Viktor isn’t better at this,_ Yuuri thinks, because he’s not sure he’ll last five minutes. The idea that Viktor practiced this—waited for it, wanted it—lusted after Yuuri this much—Yuuri rests the pointed toe of his boot against Viktor’s cock. He’s hard. Yuuri pushes a little harder.

Viktor moans and Yuuri nearly comes right there as Viktor tries to rub up against his boot. He has to pull Viktor off by the hair when they land.

“Your plane is too fast,” Viktor says hoarsely.

“I’ll make some modifications,” Yuuri says. He’s panting; five minutes of sex with Viktor is more exhausting than any villainous scheme Yuuri has ever carried out. “Come on. We’re here.”

“Where is here?”

“Parking garage.”

Viktor, mercifully, has the car parked indoors, where Yuuri can block off entrances and interrupt CCTV footage. Yuuri should be worried about being caught, but Viktor needs his help to get off the floor; all Yuuri can think is that he wouldn’t care if someone did see them, Viktor half-dressed and hard and desperate as Yuuri takes him out of the jet and shoves him facefirst over the hood of his car.

“Is this your first time?”

“No one’s ever bought me a car so they could fuck me on it.” Viktor rests his head on his folded arms. The pink paint brings out the faint pink tint down the part in his hair. “I want it. Please.”

Yuuri reaches underneath Viktor to undo his belt—Viktor jumps as Yuuri palms his erection—before hooking his fingers into Viktor’s waistband and pulling his pants down. Underneath, Viktor is wearing a tiny black thong, because of course he is. There’s a tiny ISU logo stitched onto the strap over his hip; Yuuri snaps it against Viktor’s skin loudly.

“Seriously?”

“This is part of my plan to get you to take them off.”

Yuuri does; somehow, they end up getting torn off in shreds. How that happened, Yuuri has no idea. Viktor will just have to go without underwear. Or clothes. Or anything but the fur coat Yuuri is going to have him wear later so Viktor can lounge seductively on Yuuri’s furniture.

Spread out over the hood, Viktor is perfect: he’s all hard planes and straight lines. He has the kind of body that skintight spandex would look good on. Yuuri bends over him so that he can kiss the back of Viktor’s neck, and then works his way down Viktor’s spine; by the time he’s at the small of Viktor’s back, hands on Viktor’s hips, Viktor is panting and pushing back against Yuuri’s lips.

“You promised to fuck me,” Viktor says.

“Maybe I lied.” Yuuri mean to sound calm, but his cock is still wet with Viktor’s saliva and it comes out as desperately as Viktor must feel.

“Eros.”

“I know,” Yuuri says. He spreads Viktor open and— “Why are you wearing a butt plug?” It’s bright red, nestled deep in Viktor; there is a ring jutting out from the flared base, edged  in gold.

“Isn’t that why you sent it to me?” Viktor asks. He pouts at Yuuri over his shoulder. “I even brought the roses to match…”

Yuuri absolutely did not send Viktor a butt plug, but he’s not going to stop now to explain that he thinks his robot minions have developed sentience and are now playing matchmaker. Instead he hooks a finger in the ring and pulls, very slowly, so that he can see Viktor’s hole stretching around the plug as it slips out. Lube drips out of him as it comes free; it ends up smeared all over. Viktor is open, glistening, pink.

Yuuri’s fingers slide right in, black leather stark against Viktor’s pink skin. He flexes; there’s no resistance at all. Maybe Viktor practiced this, too. Maybe he opened himself up and fucked himself with the plug before he came, just so Yuuri could have him.

“Are you still wearing your gloves?”

“You want me to take them off?”

“No,” Viktor says, “no, definitely not.”

“All right,” Yuuri says, and he bends over Viktor again, arms on either side of his body, mouth close to his ear. With his other hand he lines himself up with Viktor’s ass. Viktor’s hands scramble for purchase on the hood as he feels the head of Yuuri’s cock against him. The metal is smooth as glass; there’s nothing for him to hold onto.

“Oh—Yuuri—”

Viktor feels incredible. Yuuri plasters himself against him as he bottoms out; suddenly the catsuit he’s still mostly wearing is intolerable. The emergency release is set into one of the gems on the front. Yuuri slaps at it and his catsuit falls away in pieces. Finally, there’s skin on skin—Yuuri’s chest pressed against Viktor’s back, Viktor’s sweaty skin warm against Yuuri’s nipples, Viktor’s long hair trapped between them.

Yuuri pulls out until just the head of his cock is inside. Viktor whines beneath him as Yuuri fucks him, so slowly, enjoying the way Viktor clenches down on him like he wants to keep Yuuri in. The muscles of Viktor’s back are drawn taut with frustration; Yuuri can feel him trembling a little underneath him. Yuuri puts a hand over his mouth, feels Viktor moan against the leather as Yuuri sinks all the way in.

“Oh, you wanted to choke on it, didn’t you?’

“Mmph.”

Viktor’s cock is pressed against the front of the car. Yuuri reaches underneath it to wrap his fingers around it, shoves two fingers into Viktor’s mouth—Viktor sucks at his fingers messily—Yuuri puts his boot against Viktor’s ankle and forces open his legs.

And then Yuuri gives it to him. Viktor’s body scrapes against the hood as Yuuri fucks him against it, Viktor’s moans muffled by Yuuri’s hand, spit soaking into the leather. Everywhere they touch Yuuri’s skin is burning—his thighs against Viktor’s thighs, his hips against Viktor’s ass, skin slapping obscenely against skin. The blush on the back of Viktor’s neck has spread down his back like the advance of an empire.

Lube squelches filthily between them, drops of it running down mixed with Yuuri’s precome. Yuuri plays with the head of Viktor’s cock, feeling Viktor tighten with every stroke; Viktor is so warm, so easy, his back arching beautifully.

“Vitya,” Yuuri says—he doesn’t have any coherent words—but that’s enough. Viktor’s white-knuckled hands flatten against the hood as he comes. Yuuri buries his face against Viktor’s neck and follows.

Once Yuuri’s stripped off his gloves and left them on the parking garage floor (along with the butt plug and wow, Yuuri needs to clean that up or he’s going to be the subject of a deeply humiliating police investigation), he turns Viktor over. Viktor is no help; he’s boneless and flushed and smiling hugely.

“’Yuuri’ is a pretty name,” he says. He sighs. “Wow.”

That ‘wow’ is the greatest compliment Yuuri has ever received. Nicephorus could appear right now and declare Yuuri his archnemesis and it still wouldn’t be as satisfying as the blissed-out look on Viktor’s face.

“I’m kidnapping you back to my lair now.” They can use the sex dungeon to cuddle. There’s a decent bed in there.

“Can you kidnap Makkachin, too?”

“Sure. Stealing dogs is my specialty.”

 

* * *

 

Katsubot 47 wakes Yuuri up at three am. Yuuri rubs at his eyes, groping for his glasses; they aren’t where they should be. It takes him a moment to remember: he’s in the dungeon, not in his bedroom, and his glasses are somewhere on the floor.

“What is it, boy?”

“Boof!” 47 yanks at the covers. “Boof!”

“Hey, stop that,” Yuuri says. He tucks the blankets back in around Viktor’s waist. The noise doesn’t seem to have disturbed him; he’s fast asleep, curled toward Yuuri with Makkachin against his back.

47 buzzes in frustration. Yuuri frowns at it—it’s not like the katsubots to act out—and reaches for his phone. He scrolls absently through Evilgram, then through his email; there’s nothing of interest. The results of Chad’s attack on Ice Castle aren’t posted, either. Maybe the network is down over there again. Storms have knocked communications from Ice Castle before.

“Mm…” Yuuri glances at 47, who is still hovering nearby. He sighs. There’s no way he’ll be able to fall back asleep with 47 lurking, as much as Yuuri would like to lie back down and cuddle Viktor until dawn.

(He knows its irrational, but the success of their date just makes Yuuri feel like something is going to go wrong.)

He turns on a holotablet and pulls up a satellite image of the Caymans to look for the Good Grille. He has no idea what it looks like, but he can make a guess at possible locations; it’ll need access from sea and sky, so that heroes can sail in unseen or fly in. It’ll be private, too, or have some kind of large-scale security that Yuuri might be able to detect. He flicks through images, circling likely sites, before he remembers. Viktor’s weird payments.

Why doesn’t Viktor trust him enough to tell him? Maybe it’s just that Viktor is afraid, or maybe he’s just not ready yet. Yuuri hasn’t told Viktor everything about his past, either, though in has case it’s because Yuuri’s past is embarrassing. But Viktor’s estranged family, his knowledge about the ISU, his financial situation…Yuuri can’t help but worry.

Phichit has been tracking the payments; Yuuri checks to make sure Viktor is still sleeping before he opens the file. They aren’t fixed; Viktor sends more money when he has more. (He’s been able to send more since he met Yuuri, since Yuuri’s taken on so many of his expenses.)

He has no idea how much Viktor owes, of course, but…however much it is, Yuuri’s sure he could afford to take care of it. Maybe Viktor would like that. Maybe that would prove to Viktor that Yuuri was trustworthy enough to keep all his secrets.

Before Yuuri can talk himself out of it, he schedules a payment for noon—this way he’ll have no choice but to talk to Viktor about it in the morning—equal to all the payments Viktor has made, times ten. Then he turns off the tablet and slides back under the covers.

47 swoops in and rips the covers off.

“47! What are you—”

There’s something golden smeared across Viktor’s skin, just over his hip. It’s giving off a faint, pure light. Not a tattoo, then, or make up. But there are other explanations.  Plenty of them.

Yuuri rubs the spot of gold with his thumb. Whatever’s been covering it wipes away, revealing a stylized N, drawn on Viktor’s skin.

In exactly the place where the mark on Nicephorus is.

Nicephorus, who is pale, and whose hair is silver, and whose eyes are blue, and who disappeared last year in Primopolis. Nicephorus, whose last battle was marked by the Nicephorus shrine Viktor hates.

Nicephorus, who—now that Yuuri is looking—could be Viktor’s twin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i lied im not sorry at all


	7. i'll find your lips in the streetlights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _shoves the chapter count under the bed_ THIS IS FINE

Yuuri’s first death ray was a classic: sunlight went in, fiery destruction came out. He’d taken the first prototype for a test drive out in the desert, using a beat-up old car as a target. He’d taken aim, the barrel slipping through his sweaty fingers; he’d pulled the trigger with his eyes closed.

He’d seen the flash of red through his eyelids. He’d opened them chunks of twisted metal. To smoking, molten sand. To licks of flame still burning among the debris. Utter and absolute devastation.

That’s how Yuuri feels now—like he’s been knocked down by the force of the truth, like the glimpse of that little gold N singed his skin. His fingers still sting, hours afterward. Long after Viktor’s gone home, Yuuri remains, prone on the floor of his lab. He’s under the matter converter, wrench in hand; he’s ripped most of the guts of the machine out, mindlessly. Is he fixing it? Is he making it worse? Yuuri doesn’t know. He just knows he can’t bear to sit still and think about it.

_How could he?_

Yuuri closes his eyes. His eyelids are heavy, he’s hasn’t slept at all, but he can’t bring himself to rest. Viktor had been entirely oblivious, humming as he dressed, kissing Yuuri goodbye, patting each of the katsubots before he’d taken Makkachin and gone. His effervescence had grated on Yuuri like sandpaper.

_“You look exhausted, Yuuri. Did I wear you out?”_

_“Maybe.”_

_“Ha. I’ll see you later.”_

Had he ever told Viktor his name?

There was no reason for the ISU to have targeted Eros. Was there? Was it a way to get to Phichit? To Celestino? A way to get inside information about the NSA? Of course Eros would have been perfect for that—a dime a dozen villain, hungry for success, entirely willing to be seduced. Had they picked him because he was obsessed with Nicephorus? Or had that just been an unhappy coincidence?

In retrospect, Yuuri should have known. There had been plenty of signs. A man who knew too much, who could do mysterious things, who had no past, who wanted Yuuri… Had any of it been real? Any of it? Any bit at all?

 _I fell for it,_ Yuuri thinks. He throws aside the wrench and gropes around for pliers. They’re pushed into his hand—one of the bots must be here with him—and starts cutting wires. What does it matter if he ruins the matter converter? It’s not like he’s ever used it for anything other than stupid, pointless things. It’s not like Yuuri’s ever done anything of use. He’d stolen the plans for a high tech integrated prosthesis from his job, gotten caught and been forced to go on the run. He’d become a villain to avoid the cops and ended up wasting most of his time and effort trying to impress the first attractive man who paid attention to him.

The matter converter groans alarmingly. Yuuri freezes—he hasn’t been worrying about structural integrity, that might have been a mistake—and cries out as he’s dragged by his feet out from under the machine. His head is barely clear when it collapses entirely; the tip of a stray wire scrapes against his scalp.

“Boof,” 47 says. She’s floating by his ankle, her optic light blinking furiously in concern. She’s not alone, either. Every katsubot Yuuri has ever made, all one hundred and seven of them, are crowded into the lab. They’re all obviously watching him.

“Hey,” Yuuri says. He takes back all the times he’s wondered if the sentience of the bots of the problem. The bots are smarter than Yuuri has ever been. “What’s up?”

“Boof,” 47 repeats. She butts at his foot. “Boof?”

“It’s not your fault. You were protecting me.” He sits up and reaches out until he can pat 47 on top of her casing. “You’re a good bot.”

Two other bots swoop in on either side of 47. They whir like fans; after a moment, 47 joins them. It takes Yuuri a minute to realize they’re cuddling.

He’d held Viktor even after he’d realized the truth. Whether that makes him desperate, pathetic, or both, Yuuri doesn’t know. He just knows he’d been relieved Viktor was gone and he’d missed him the moment the door had shut behind him.

“Boof?” 47 floats toward Yuuri until she’s level with his face. He watches her optics focus in on him; other villains had found that disconcerting, but Yuuri likes it; it reminds him of a dog’s ears perking up. She extends her arms, the claws on the ends clicking, until they’re circling Yuuri.

It’s a hug.

“I’m okay,” he whispers. He’s not okay. The bots must know it, too; they swoop down around him, arms extended, until Yuuri is the center of an all-encompassing and whirring robot group hug.

 

* * *

 

Phichit’s brewed another bottle of ‘alcohol’. Yuuri downs it like a shot, straps on his welding gear, and gets to work.

 

* * *

 

When Yuuri wakes up, he feels like there’s a fire alarm going off in his brain.

No, scratch that. It’s not his brain. There’s an actual fire alarm going off. Yuuri can see the flashing light from his cot, where he’d fallen asleep after several hours of drunken supervillainy and an entire pot of box mac and cheese. Yuuri starts to lie back down and then realizes that the fire alarm only goes off when things are on fire.

“Shit!”

Yuuri falls off the cot and sprints out of the lab. The floor is freezing under his bare feet, which is a relief; it must not be a big fire. One of the bots tugs on his arm. Yuuri nods and follows.

There’s smoke billowing out of an open doorway, Phichit is yelling, Yuuri sees a flash of blue flame—he reacts instinctively, draws the de-gun, fires. Someone screams.

“Carmine!”

“Eros!” Phichit is visible through through the smoke in bright red. He’s got a fire extinguisher in each hand. “It’s Chris—he’s Toxic Flame!”

One of the bots turns on the fan; cold air is blasted into the room as the smoke is sucked out. _Thank god for that,_ Yuuri thinks, because he’s too busy losing his shit to do anything. It is Chris, dressed in a blue and purple jumpsuit,  balls of flame on his shoulders. He is covered in glue from neck to waist; his arms are stuck to his sides. _I should have taken it off the decoupage setting…at least the glue is fireproof._ Yuuri is alarmed to realize that the only thing Chris has done to disguise himself since quitting villainy is dye half his hair blond. Not even his whole hair. Just the top half. Like a mushroom.

Yuuri feels so much better about his prowess at villainy, even though he’s basically redundant now that his robots exist. He knows for a fact that he is unrecognizable in leather. He’d run into an ex-boyfriend from college once in costume and they’d asked for his autograph.

“Chris can’t be Toxic Flame,” Yuuri says indignantly, even though it’s blatantly obvious to him that Chris is. His protest is more existential. “He’s Viktor’s roommate!”

“…so?”

“So Viktor is Nicephorus!”

“He what?” Phichit chokes. Loudly. He sprays Chris with the fire extinguisher, leaving him covered in dripping white foam. Later Phichit will no doubt say that this was an ‘accident.’ Whatever. Phichit is a true bro.

“Eros.” Chris is looking at him. His eyes glow like he’s burning inside as well as out. “Did you think that you could get away with it?”

“…with what?”

“Did you think that there would be no retribution?”

_‘No retribution?’ I guessed whoever trained Chris didn’t teach him about banter._

“For what?”

Chris scowls. The fires on his shoulders rise. “For what you did to Viktor!”

“For what I did to Viktor?” Yuuri says. Behind him several bots beep angrily. “Viktor violated the Code of Heroism! He—he—” Saying ‘he lied to me’ seems way too whiny. Chris is a supervillain. Yuuri has to maintain his dignity. “It’s not my fault he’s a shitty hero!”

“You’re the one who seduced him into villainy! Ever since he met you he’s been careless!” There is smoke coming out of Chris’s ears. Yuuri is so distracted by this he almost misses what Chris says next. “You didn’t have the balls to fight him, so you went behind his back and got him arrested like a Chad!”

“I’m not a Chad!” Yuuri sputters. “I didn’t seduce him!” Viktor wore a butt plug to their date, Yuuri was not at fault. “I didn’t—arrested? What do you mean, he’s arrested?”

“Don’t play dumb!” Chris snaps. The fire is climbing up his neck; Yuuri is glad that Chris’s arms are restrained, because he’s pretty sure the fact that his signature weapon has a setting that covers people in glue is the only thing keeping Chris from flambeing him.

“I’m not playing!” Yuuri _is_ dumb.

“Okay!” Phichit claps loudly. “Let’s all calm down.”

“I’m calm,” Yuuri lies.

“I mostly mean Flamey over here,” Phichit says. He gestures vaguely at Chris. “You. Don’t move, you’re cute but not that cute.”

They drag over some chairs. Phichit secures the prisoner; meanwhile, Yuuri ducks out and accepts the change of clothes the bot have brought him. (He also arms the sprinkler system. Just in case.) Phichit’s strapped Chris to a chair when Yuuri walks back in. He takes care to walk slowly, like he’s not panicking. Chris is no longer on fire and is also dripping wet; presumably Phichit decided to secure the prisoner thoroughly.

“When was Viktor arrested?”

“…you really have no idea, do you?” Chris sighs and leans back in his seat, like he’s lounging at a party. His nonchalance is immediately irritating. “He would fall in love with an idiot.”

The fire alarms, now metaphorical, return inside Yuuri’s brain.

“Explain,” Phichit says. “Or I get the fire hose.”

“Viktor came home this morning—did he tell you he was Nicephorus?”

“No,” Yuuri says through gritted teeth.

“Hmm. I thought maybe he had, he was in a good mood. I was at work until two in the morning and he woke me up when he came in with his singing.” Chris shrugs. “I ran down to the store to buy dishwashing detergent. When I came back Viktor was being shoved into an ISU van in chains.”

“And you didn’t do anything?” Phichit asks.

“I couldn’t have done anything,” Chris snaps. Yuuri squints at him; Chris can start fires with his mind. “Viktor vouched for me after I was arrested. If I was caught committing acts of villainy, it would be his fault. He was in enough trouble as it is.”

“Seems kind of extreme,” Phichit muses. “I mean, look at Chad. The ISU only disciplines him when he’s bad PR. Nicephorus is the most popular hero ever.”

Yuuri agrees. Why would anyone (besides angry villains) want to arrest Nicephorus? _He’s like the opposite of a Chad._

“He hasn’t exactly been popular with the ISU since he quit,” Chris replies. “One of the ISU goon tried to interrogate me, but I didn’t get anything out of him. Just that they were pulling all Viktor’s bank records.”

Yuuri tries to remember if he canceled the payment he’d scheduled. _No,_ he thinks, _I was too busy wallowing._ Which meant that Yuuri, in addition to entangling himself with Viktor emotionally, physically, and sexually, has entangled himself with Viktor financially. Apparently that’s the bit the ISU protests.

Only Yuuri could fail to notice that he was dating a famous superhero and then defeat said superhero by giving him money. He’s so bad at villainy that his romantic gestures are eviler than his actual evil deeds.

_And if Viktor quit being Nicephorus, what was he doing with me? It doesn’t make any sense. Either Chris is wrong, or…_

“Is Makkachin okay?” Yuuri asks.

“She keeps crying at the door and chewing the furniture,” Chris says. “Well? Why did they arrest him?”

“I told you, I had nothing to do with it.”

“You’re the only suspicious person Viktor knows.”

“He knows you,” Phichit points out.

“Don’t you care about Viktor getting arrested?” Chris asks. He’s throwing off sparks; steam is rising off his hair like the mushroom cloud after an atom bomb drops.

“No,” Yuuri says, like a liar.

Then, before he can give himself away, he gets up and goes out into the hallway. He leans against the wall, head in his hands; everything feels like it’s spinning. Vicchan barks; he’s sitting on Yuuri’s feet. Yuuri slides down the wall until he’s on the floor. What can he do? What should he do?

 

* * *

 

Even at night, it’s warmer in the Caymans than it is in New Metro. Yuuri is sweating in his leather and regrets sacrificing breathable fabric for being intimidating. His glasses are fogging up; he slips them off and squints down at the clear blue waters below.

Yuuri is squatting on the wing of the hoverjet, ten feet above the surface of the ocean, waiting for someone to go in to what he thinks is the ISU’s secret prison. It turns out that there is a fourth Cayman Island, concealed beneath an enormous force field. It turns out that said island includes a giant ISU building and several fancy, ultramodern villas with private beaches. (Yuuri can tell they’re private because of the fences and the no trespassing signs.) And it turns out that off the coast of the secret island is a patch of sea floor that is suspiciously uniform and square.

Nothing screams ‘nefarious’ like an underwater lair, so Yuuri assumes this must be the prison.

 _This is stupid,_ Yuuri thinks. Viktor’s in prison, he’d probably say anything to get out… Even as the thought crosses his mind, Yuuri rejects it. Even if Viktor’s preternatural lack of fear was because he was a superhero and therefore entirely capable of defending himself, Yuuri can’t imagine that a man so cold-blooded he’d seduce Yuuri for…whatever…would then be deterred by a little jail time. Besides, if Chad had the pull to get himself released after less than a day of imprisonment, it’s unlikely that Nicephorus, internationally renowned superhero, is going to be here for long.

Which means that Yuuri really needs to break into the ISU jail now. Otherwise he’s not sure when he’ll have the chance to confront Viktor again.

There had been no time to plan anything elaborate, so Yuuri’s relying on the time-honored tradition of improvising and praying to an uncaring god for benevolence (or at least non-maleficence). As soon as the entrance to the prison opens, Yuuri is going to jump off the wing of the hoverjet, grab onto whatever’s going in, activate his jet boots, and hope he can get through. He has a cloaking device, his degun, two smoke bombs, and whatever else is built into his suit. Yuuri’s not sure; he’d picked one at random.

_What am I going to say to him?_

A shadow passes over him. Yuuri looks up. A gleaming white flying saucer is descending directly above him, in complete silence. Of course the ISU is responsible for UFOs. Of course they are. He kicks the hoverjet—it flies backwards and out of the way—and clicks his heels together to turn on the jet boots. He flattens himself against the underside of the saucer and takes a deep breath.

The suit probably has built-in diving functionality. Probably.

_One problem at a time._

The water is freezing. The force of their descent keeps Yuuri pressed against the saucer, and they’re moving fast. His lungs are burning by the time the saucer starts to slow, and for a moment Yuuri panics. Is he going to drown down here because he has no impulse control?

But no—they’ve landed on something. And now the ground underneath is opening up, spilling out white light, like the sliding doors of a Walmart at two am when Yuuri really needs duct tape and nothing else is open. Yuuri throws himself downward at the gap; to his relief, as soon as he’s through, he’s no longer underwater.

He sucks in lungfuls of air. There must be another force field here, holding back the water. He’s in some kind of loading bay; there are mechanics in coveralls and ISU goons with police batons wandering all around. Another white saucer is parked there already. No one points at him or yells ‘intruder’, so the cloaking device is still working. For now.

Yuuri touches down on the concrete and shadows one of the guards who’s heading for a door. As the guard swipes a keycard, unlocking a metal door that slides open, Yuuri slips in behind him.

Then Yuuri lifts the keycard and starts walking. He’s in no position to get caught by the ISU; eventually he suspects Phichit would get him out, or the bots would revolt and stage a prison break, but it’d be a waste of time and Yuuri would lose his hardwon commendations. He’d forced all the katsubots to stay behind, so that there was no chance of them being captured and dissected by the ISU.

They hadn’t liked that. At all. 47 in particular had clung to his leg for half an hour.

_If I were keeping prisoners hostage, where would I put them? Either away from the water, so they couldn’t flood the place, or…_

He turns a corner. There are a pair of guards patrolling this hallway. And unlike the one Yuuri just robbed, these two are carrying oxygen tanks and wearing wet suits.

_Bingo._

 

* * *

 

Viktor is alone in his cell.

Yuuri watches him, concealed, for what feels like an eternity. The prison has the feel of a depressing aquarium; the cells are cubes of glass, floating within an enormous tank of seawater. The walls of each cell have two layers, and close inspection reveals a layer of blue liquid between them; Yuuri would bet that it’s some kind of poison, to disable any prisoners who make the mistake of smashing their cells.

In the blue light of the prison, Viktor looks more like Nicephorus than ever, even dressed in a rough gray prison jumpsuit. He could pass for a painting of stoic heroism, except that there’s a hickey visible above his collar.

The guards access the cells via a network of glass tunnels. But there’s no one here now but Yuuri. It’s just him, a thousand restless prisoners, and Viktor, leaning against the glass, looking up at the dark water beyond the ceiling of the prison. The stars aren’t visible to Yuuri, but maybe Viktor can see them. Or maybe he just wishes he could.

A part of Yuuri is waiting for Viktor to notice him—to turn around, look at him, acknowledge him. _Here I am,_ Yuuri thinks, _standing here, freezing my ass off in waterlogged leather, just to see you…_

He turns off the cloaking device.

He knocks on the glass wall of the tunnel. Impossible, that Viktor should hear it, but he must; he turns, and he meets Yuuri’s eyes.

“You’re here.”

Impossible, that Viktor’s voice should carry this far, but Yuuri hears him.

“It’s kind of my fault you’re in prison.”

“I know,” Viktor says. “How did you find me?”

“I saw,” Yuuri hears himself say, though the answer—“Chris told me”—is there on his tongue. “The mark on your body—I saw it.”

“Oh.” Viktor is silent. Yuuri watches Viktor’s brow furrow with dread, “And that’s why you had me arrested…?”

“What? No, that was completely unrelated. It was an accident. Is your name really Viktor?”

“What?”

“Is your name really Viktor or did you make that up?”

“It’s not my legal name, no,” Viktor says. “But it’s the name I chose for myself. It…it’s real to me.”

“Oh.”

“Is Makkachin with you?”

“Makkachin? No, she’s with Chris.”

“I doubt that,” Viktor says. He looks up again. “I’ve never been taken away from her before. She’s not very patient.”

“…we’re talking about your dog, right?”

“Mm.” Overhead, in the darkness beyond the glass, Yuuri sees something move. Something large, and black, and tentacley. _Does the ISU have a giant mutant squid guarding the prison?_ “Do you have an air tank, Yuuri?”

“Uh,” Yuuri says. That is not the kind of question he wants to hear while underwater. “I can get one.”

“You should do that,” Viktor says distantly. “I don’t think that glass is going to hold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are much appreciated! i hope to have something done for Viktor's birthday, but if not, my next update will probably be next year! Have a good holiday, y'all.


	8. i wanna be there with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i live

He’s drowning.

His chest burns as he gasps, trying to pull air into lungs filled with water. He thrashes, but his limbs are heavy. The world is spinning. There’s light, somewhere, but all Yuuri sees is his life flashing before his eyes. He’s dying, and the last thing he sees is going to be the highlights reel of all his mistakes.

“Dammit—the poison—”

_Help me._ But the blackness is intruding. There’s no air.

“What do I do, what do I—Makkachin—”

A hand on his chest, and then relief.

Yuuri sucks in sweet air, breathing so hard his neck aches. The world comes back into focus; he’s lying on a hard floor, staring up at Viktor’s face, framed on either side by fluorescent tube lighting. _The ISU can afford private beach villas but not LED bulbs,_ Yuuri thinks.

“Yuuri?” Viktor is saying.

“I,” Yuuri groans, horribly aware of all the other protests his body is making now that he can breathe, “I thought…air tank.” Viktor’s holding onto his hand so hard it hurts.

“Sorry, Makkachin got a little carried away,” Viktor says.

_Sure, blame the dog,_ Yuuri thinks. Why is Viktor shaking? But no, it’s Yuuri who’s trembling on the icy floor. His brain still feels like it’s underwater, left behind in the prison tank. He blinks, eyes stinging, up at Viktor.

Viktor looks awful. He doesn’t look like a hero. He looks like ten miles of bad road and a funeral. And he just saved Yuuri’s life. It’s very hard to be mad at him.

“Viktor,” Yuuri says. “Nicephorus. I—”

There is…something…wrapped around Viktor. Something large and black and formless and undulating, with long tendrils that drape over Viktor’s shoulders. Points of red light keep disappearing and appearing, like it’s on fire inside, or has too many eyes. It’s making a noise that Yuuri previously mistook for a security alarm, a noise like a cross between an old-school 64 bit Pokemon cry and a blender.

Viktor is petting it—her?—with his free hand absently. One of the tentacles wraps around his wrist, and Viktor looks down at it and sighs.

“Is she okay? Is she a…she?”

“I don’t think she really understands human gender. Or sexual dimorphism. Or being fully present on this plane of reality.” Viktor manages a thin, timid smile. “But I really wanted a girl poodle, so that’s the form she took.”

That’s a lot. That’s way too much for Yuuri’s confused gay mind. He looks around, anywhere, to avoid looking at Viktor.

Also because of situational awareness, because he’s a competent villain. Really.

Yuuri recognizes this hallway now; they’re barely back inside the base, only a few yards from the entrance into the tank. Even ISU’s security should have figured out that they’ve been penetrated by the enemy at this point. Apparently ISU security is about as effective as an expired condom.

“Where are the guards?”

“They won’t waste their time with us,” Viktor says. “There’s always a high-ranked hero on site here—they’ll focus on containing the prisoners.”

“Shit.” The last thing he needs is to be seen rescuing Nicephorus from prison. That’s not what’s happening—Viktor clearly did not need rescuing and Yuuri’s already almost died—but if this gets back to the NSA, he’ll be demoted to minion faster than Phichit’s wifi.

He wrenches his hand out of Viktor’s. _It’s time to get out of here._

In theory, this is a great plan. In practice, Yuuri tries to sit up and immediately fails. His muscles won’t respond, no matter how much he grits his teeth and tries. He fumbles at his wrist, for the emergency controls in the catsuit—there are backup systems in case Yuuri is incapacitated—but there’s no response. _Poison must have fried it._

That leaves Yuuri with one de-gun, one lying ex-boyfriend, some kind of eldritch demon/dog, and a useless pile of flesh masquerading as his body. The suit is worthless to him now; it’s absorbed so much water that it’s heavy. Yuuri fumbles for the concealed zipper with zero success. He has the dexterity of teenagers losing their virginity while their parents are in the next room, and his gloves aren’t helping.

“Fuck.”

“Do you need help?”

“I’m fine.”

“Here.” Viktor cups his hands in front of him and blows into his open palms. A single yellow spark appears, and then grows, until a miniature sun is burning golden in his hands. “Open up.”

“What?”

Viktor shoves it into his mouth. Yuuri expects it to be hot, but it tastes like nothing he’s ever eaten; he’s not sure taste is even the right word for the sensation. A perfect, summery warmth floods his entire body, and suddenly Yuuri’s limbs feel less like lead and more like feathers. Yuuri tries to stand up again, and this time, he manages it.

_No wonder his tea’s so popular. No wonder that matcha is so good._

He peels off his gloves with his teeth, tossing them onto the floor.

Yuuri pulls his arms out of the sleeves and pushes the catsuit down to his ankles. He’d like to ditch the jet boots, too, but they still seem to work, so once he has the catsuit off he has to put them back on. _I would kill a man for dry socks. Not even clean socks. Just ones that were dry._ As it is, he’s now wearing boxers and a tshirt. They’re designed to reduce chafing and to act as a protective underlayer if the catsuit is compromised. But since Yuuri designed them with the intention of no one ever seeing them, they’re also deeply unintimidating. They’re white.

At least the self-destruct still works. Yuuri piles up all his equipment against the wall, mourning it already—it takes forever to break leather like that in—before he flips the switch.

The leather burns to a crisp, just like his and Viktor’s relationship.

“Which way is the exit?” Viktor asks.

“It’s your headquarters.” It comes out petulant. Now that he’s not dying, he’s angry. How can Viktor just act like everything is fine? Isn’t he going to explain himself? Doesn’t he think Yuuri deserves an explanation?

“I told you before, I’ve never actually been here—”

“You also failed to mention you were secretly Nicephorus!” Yuuri starts to walk away; he’s pretty sure he knows his way back to the exit, where he’ll have access to a plane, his bots, and dry socks.

“Failed to menti—it’s not like you ever asked!”

“Are you serious?” Yuuri whirls around, too angry to go through with his original plan of walking away without looking back to prove how little he cares. “Why the fuck would I ask my boyfriend if he was secretly a world-famous superhero in disguise?”

“I wasn’t in disguise,” Viktor asks. His voice cracks. “I was being myself.”

“You lied to me.”

“You haven’t told me your real identity.”

“Yeah, about that,” Yuuri says. It’s Chris’s mushroom hair all over again. There’s no need for Viktor to rub it in. “Did you read my mind?”

“What?” Viktor asks, too quickly. His grip on Makkachin, who is still draped over him like a cloak, like Viktor’s some kind of weird demonic historical reenactor, tightens. “Why—why do you ask?”

“Because I never told you my name.”

“Oh. That.” Viktor looks around. “We really should leave.”

“You lied to me.” Yuuri’s eyes are burning. He tells himself it’s the poison, the near-death experience, anything but tears. He’d charged into the prison determined to get the truth and he’s leaving it like this, pathetic, begging for it. “What was the point? Why’d you pick me?”

“I read your thesis.”

This is why Viktor is the most powerful superhero on Earth, because he just murdered Yuuri in four words. Yuuri’s thesis was mostly written while he was drunk, because that was the best way for him to process the comments Ciao Ciao left on his draft. Alcohol erases Yuuri’s ability to be ashamed. There were entire pages that he’d had to excise because they were too gay. His Contemporary Villainous History professor had despaired over him.

More importantly, the only available copy of Yuuri’s thesis is on a flash drive taped to the bottom of a Burger King sign in Kentucky. It’s supposed to impossible for anyone, including Yuuri, to ever read it again.

“How did you get my thesis?” Yuuri asks. He tries very hard not to sound shrill and panicky. He sounds like a parrot being tortured. “That Burger King was condemned!”

“What? _You_ sent me a copy.”

“Nope. Nope, that never happened. That’s definitely a lie.”

“You drew a stick figure version of me in the margins.”

“You hallucinated that. It’s a delusion.”

“There was an entire page about my ability to control the weather.”

“Uh.” Yuuri’s powers of deception have failed him. He’s played himself.

“There was a note attached with your real name on it,” Viktor explains. “I didn’t have to read your mind.”

“Oh—wait, so you _can_ read my mind?”

“…no.”

Viktor definitely looks like he’s lying. So that’s cool, now Yuuri can not only fuck up using his words but also fuck up by having a brain. Yuuri represses that tidbit immediately.

“Look, was our entire relationship a plot to infiltrate the NSA or not?”

Viktor stares at him. “Why would I pretend to date you to break into the NSA?”

“…okay, fair,” Yuuri says. He shrugs. Viktor’s given him an explanation, which is what he wanted, so why does it still hurt? Why does it matter if Viktor didn’t think Yuuri was trustworthy enough for him? He’s a villain. That ought to be a compliment. But Yuuri’s not a very good villain, because the knowledge sits in his stomach like old Chinese takeout.

Yuuri’s pretty sure that he’s in love with Viktor. And he’s also pretty sure they can’t have a real relationship if Viktor is okay with keeping secrets like ‘we’re actually supposed to be mortal enemies, also I totally know about you masturbating to me as a teen.’ _I should have just stayed in the lair,_ Yuuri thinks. _Everything about this sucks._

The silence between them is pregnant—third trimester, ready to pop with blood and screaming—and when a giant block of ice falls out of the ceiling and nearly crushes them both, Yuuri is grateful.

“Nicephorus!”

It’s Ice Tiger, one of the baby heroes from Primopolis, crouching on top of the block of ice. Yuuri recognizes him from the sparkling white costume and the perpetually angry expression. Usually heroes smile in promotional shots, but Ice Tiger always looks like someone just kicked his cat.

“Oh, hi, Yurio,” Viktor sighs. “I see they gave you one of my old costumes.”

“You shut up!” Ice Tiger snaps. “You promised you were going to train me! And then you ran off like a coward! I had to train with JJ!”

“Did I say that? Hmm. I don’t remember.”

“And who is this pig?” Ice Tiger—Yurio, apparently—asks. “It’s true, then? You ran off for some guy?”

“Wait,” Yuuri says. “That was not my fault.” Actually, since Viktor read his thesis, it might be his fault. But he’s not going to admit that. “Aren’t you Maple Blade’s sidekick?”

“I’m not a sidekick! I’m a licensed hero.” 

The temperature drops sharply, and Yuuri shivers. He’s glad he’s not wearing his wet catsuit anymore.

“Why don’t you come down, Yurio?” Viktor asks. “I know you’re short, but that’s reason to yell at us from all the way up there.”

“I’m going to beat your ass and _put you back in jail.”_

“There’s not really a prison anymore,” Yuuri points out.

“That goes for you, too,” Yurio snaps. “We don’t need some third string villain hanging around. I’ll freeze you.”

“Eros isn’t third string,” Viktor says. “He’s extremely evil. He broke my heart.”

“Excuse me?”

Before Yuuri can enumerate all the ways in which Viktor is wrong, Yurio lets out a howl of anger and attacks. The block of ice shatters and the fragments fly straight at them. Yuurii covers his eyes with his arm, preparing to be sliced up, but nothing happens except a sudden rush of steam and heat all around him. He looks up.

Viktor’s sublimated all the ice. Without raising the temperature of the air around them to boiling point.

The steam is dissipating, but it’s still good cover. So Yuuri does the logical thing and shoots Yurio. Yurio’s training must have been shitty, because he drops like a piano pushed out a third floor window.

“What did you do to him?” Viktor asks. He pokes Yurio’s sleeping body with his foot.

“Debilitate setting on low. He’s not going to be out that long. What do you mean, _I_ broke _your_ heart?”

Yurio twitches. Yuuri probably should have hit him at a higher setting, but he felt bad shooting a kid. He grabs Viktor’s arm and starts running in the direction of the entrance. The halls are unnervingly empty, not one guard or hapless employee or killer robot. Doorways have been left open. The blaring alarm is accompanied by a flashing red light. Viktor lets himself be hauled without complaint; either he really doesn’t know how to get out or he assumes Yuuri might need him to save his life again.

(Yuuri has also noticed that Makkachin, who Viktor is still wearing like a giant demonic cape, does not seem to weight anything. He’s…just not going to think about that.)

They’re three feet from the giant metal garage door that leads outside when they’re attacked.

By Gemini One.

“Nicephorus!” Gemini One—or as Yuuri and Phichit refer to him, Calm Down Bro—is a hero. He’s a mediocre hero who dressed like a medieval knight and whose goal in life is to hunt down the villain who seduced his sister. His sister used to be Gemini Two. Yuuri’s pretty sure the only thing that seduced her to a life of villainy was the realization villains could forge themselves new identities and therefore she could never see Calm Down Bro again.

“Oh, hi, Mickey,” Viktor says. “Why are you here?”

“You seduced my sister!”

“Uh,” Viktor says.

“I’m not fooled, Eros,” Gemini One says. Behind him the metal doors start to rattle. “Even if you take off that perverted outfit, I’d recognize that disgusting look on your face anywhere!”

“Uh,” Yuuri says. He seduced Gemini One’s sister? That seems unlikely. Unless she was in his advanced bondage seminar? Maybe they’d been partners for the Seducing The Enemy project? Either way, she’d been a villain when he met her. Viktor’s the only hero Yuuri has slept with.

“Admit it! You lured my sister into villainy and now you’ve lured Nicephorus, too!”

“Eros isn’t disgusting,” Viktor says indignantly.

_That is not the point,_ Yuuri thinks. The doors behind Gemini One are straining; there’s a metallic groan as the hinges snap. _That is the opposite of the point._ He pushes Viktor back, even as he gets ready to run. Those doors could be dangerous weapon—if they hit. And if they don’t, they’ll have a nice, clear path out of ISU HQ.

Behind, he hears a distinctly demonic growl.

“Makkachin, no!”

A seething mass of tentacles lunges. Gemini One vanishes—his scream is abruptly cut off, possibly he’s dead—as Makkachin begins making a slurping sound. Her tentacles wiggle like a dog wagging its tail. Yuuri sees a glimpse of teeth.

“No, Makkachin,” Viktor says, in the same tone he uses when Makkachin tries to take food off his plate. And just like when Makkachin steals food, Viktor follows up this stern tone with absolutely nothing. “We _don’t_ eat people.”

“Rrrwwwh!”

“I know he’s tasty, but you still have to let him go.”

“Wwwrrrgh!”

“Yes, even if you don’t like him. Good girl.”

While Viktor is trying to convince his eldritch fake dog to not commit a murder, Yuuri switches his degun to death ray mode and takes out the doors. Then he pops open the security keypad holding the airlock shut up and starts rewiring it, using the tiny toolkit hidden in the degun’s handle. Then he ransacks what looks like an abandoned security guard station for pants.

“Who’s a good eldritch abomination?” Viktor is cooing. “You are! Who’s getting steamed buns? Yes, you are!”

Gemini One moans.

One of the security guards has left his computer on. And is still logged into his account. Phichit would die, Yuuri thinks, even as he digs out a tiny flash drive (also embedded in his gun) and plugs it in. It flashes once, twice, and then it beeps to signal it’s done doing its hacking thing.

“We should go,” Viktor says. He’s just appeared behind Yuuri without making any noise. Beside him is Makkachin, now a poodle again. She barks at him. Yuuri bends down to scratch her head on instinct. “Mickey and Yurio aren’t strong enough to be the only security here.”

“We can swim out from here,” Yuuri says. “Just get ready to hold your breath, this place will flood as soon as I open the doors.”

“Isn’t there an airlock?”

“I’m gonna override it. Hopefully that’ll keep them from chasing us.”

He stares at the airlock, at the only thing keeping him from escaping. He needs to escape, and yet he knows that once they leave, everything will be changed. Maybe Viktor will come back with him to New Metro and they can talk there. Maybe he’ll fly off into the night as soon as they’ve left.

“You never told me why you picked me.” Yuuri swallows. “You never told me why you didn’t trust me.”

“You wrote about me like I was a person,” Viktor says quietly. “And after that, I realized how important it was to me to be a person, not just a hero. So I quit. And I thought…it might put you off.”

Yuuri squints at him. “Did you actually read my thesis?”

“Every word.”

“Then you should know that it wouldn’t have put me off,” Yuuri says. He clears his throat. “I would have wanted to know you, no matter what.”

Viktor blushes all the way up to his ears. He holds out a hand.

“Come on,” he says. “You don’t have an air tank. I’ll help you breathe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suddenly realizing you don't remember what tensegrity is: the leading cause of death in med school students
> 
> comments? i love 'em


	9. interlude: a boy and his dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A boy and his dog. Sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I write the next chapter, here, have a little bit of Viktor backstory. I couldn't fit it in the fic, since we're in Yuuri's POV (though you'll see some of the aftereffects of this in the next chapter) but I wanted to share it.

Nicephorus checks under his bed every night for monsters.

He’s not sure why monsters would be under his bed, or why that girl at the park is looking for them. What if there is a monster there? How is she going to fight it? The whole thing seems weird to him. But Nicephorus’s a hero (in training) so it’s his job to fight monsters. So every night, before bed, he leans over the side of the bed and looks.

Usually it’s just the box, the one with his cradle and the note that he was left on Yakov's doorstep with.

Before bed, Nicephorus likes to look in his book. Lilia gave him the journal for his birthday, so that he could write down all the stuff he was learning every night. Nicephorus already has lots of homework, so instead he draws stuff—fun stuff, not hero training stuff—and cuts out pictures from magazines and glues them in. There are a lot of pictures of dogs, and there’s pictures he drew of Yakov and Lilia and Georgi, and a story he made up about how someday his parents will come back for him.

He doesn’t know their names, so he just called them Mom and Dad. Yakov promised to get him a book with Greek names in it, though, so that Nicephorus could try and find out. Maybe if he sees the right name, he’ll remember it, like people with amnesia do in movies.

“Okay,” Nicephorus says, after he’s done pasting in another picture of a poodle and naming it. “Monster time.”

He leans over the side of the bed and looks.

There’s a monster there.

“Oh my god,” he whispers. It’s a black monster, with red eyes, and it’s got all these tiny things poking of out it, like tiny fingerless hands. It looks at him, but it doesn’t do anything, so he doesn’t, either. Heroes aren’t supposed to attack first. And Nicephorus’s never met a monster before. “Hi.”

The monster makes a noise. That must be ‘hi’ in monster language. _Monsterese? Monsterian?_

“Are you a bad monster?”

The monster makes a different noise and pokes Nicephorus’s outstretched hand. It’s cold, but it doesn’t hurt, so Nicephorus figures it’s fine. It’s a good monster. What is he supposed to do for a good monster? Nicephorus thinks about it. Maybe the monster is lost, or maybe under the beds is just where monsters live. He’ll have to ask Yakov when he comes back from his business trip.

“Do you want a snack?”

The monster’s eyes go up and down. That’s a yes.

Nicephorus rummages around in his desk until he finds his secret stash. He has a whole candy bar in there that he’s been saving. He unwraps it, breaks off a piece, and holds it out. The monster snags it with one of its tiny octopus arms and it disappears. It makes a noise, but it’s a happy noise. Nicephorus closes his eyes and concentrates, the way he has to do in the class where they’re teaching him to not accidentally feel other people’s feelings or read their thoughts. The monster feels happy.

Nicephorus feeds it the rest of his candy bar.

“I have to go to sleep,” he whispers. “I’ll bring you some more food tomorrow.” He frowns. “Hey, what do ouy eat?”

The monster pokes him again, this time in the forehead, and Nicephorus feels its answer.

“Meat? Okay. I’ll save you some dinner.”

* * *

 

Nicephorus never tells Yakov about the monster.

He’s supposed to. That’s what a good hero in training would do. Yakov’s his coach and Nicephorus’s not supposed to lie to him ever. But none of the kids in training like him, and anyways Nicephorus only has two classes with them. He barely ever gets to go to the park, and he doesn’t go to a school like normal kids. Yakov won’t let him have a pet, not even Nicephorus tried to negotiate down from a dog to a fish.

“No distractions,” Yakov and Lilia always say.

Having a monster isn’t exactly like having a pet, because the monster is really smart and can talk to Nicephorus in his head with pictures and feelings. Now that Nicephorus’s feeding it, it’ll even com out from under the bed and play with him. Sometimes they play hide and seek, which is fun because the monster can hide anywhere, even inside a mug or in the shadow on the ceiling. The monster has really sharp teeth, too, and helps Nicephorus cut out the really complicated pictures so he doesn’t cut bits off.

It’s like having a friend, besides Georgi, and Georgi’s still in Siberia training with a witch.

“Hey, monster?”

“Hrggh?”

“Do you want to be my dog?”

“Rrmg.”

“I know you’re not a real dog,” Nicephorus says, “but I’m not a real human, so we can match. Please?”

“Hrgghu?”

“Oh, what’s a dog? Here.” Nicephorus shows it his favorite picture, which is a really big poodle. “It’s a girl. I named her Makkachin.” Nicephorus bites his lip, because he’s not supposed to sneak out, but decides to do it anyways. “If you hide in my backpack, we can go to the petstore. They have poodle puppies.”

“Mrggh.”

“Okay.”

* * *

 

The lady at the petstore lets Nicephorus play with the puppies, which is good because he likes puppies and so does his monster, but it’s bad because he gets caught sneaking back in. Luckily Yakov doesn’t look in his backpack, just assigns him a hundred more levitations as homework. Nicephorus does them after dinner as fast as he can, so that he and the monster can finish their game of monopoly.

He unzips his backpack as soon as he has the door closed.

“Sorry I had to leave you in there,” he says. “I—”

It’s not the monster in his backpack. It’s a tiny poodle puppy instead. It licks his hand.

“…monster?”

The poodle’s eyes flash red.

“You can turn into a dog?”

It climbs out of the bag and onto his knee. It’s got a collar on, and the tag on the collar says Nicephorus.

Nicephorus wipes his eyes. Real heroes don’t cry. “Is it okay if I call you Makkachin?”

“Woof!”

Makkachin sleeps in bed with him that night. The next day Nicephorus lies and says he found her in the road, and Makkchin pretends to have a broken leg so Yakov believes it. After he begs and promises to take her of her all by himself, Yakov gives in. He’s not supposed to take her with him to training, but she turns back into her monster shape and hides in his bag again.

Makkachin is really good at fighting. _We’re gonna make a great team,_ Nicephorus decides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are very much appreciated :)


	10. when the lights go out

Yuuri has never appreciated dry clothing the way he does right now.

“Hngh.” He’s making a weird noise, isn’t he? Who cares? Yuuri has dry socks. He has dry shoes. He has a nice, warm catsuit on. The sofa he’s lying has heated seats.

Viktor is sitting on the sofa beside his head, staring at him. Whatever power allowed Viktor to keep Yuuri breathing while they were underwater also keeps him completely dry. He’s still wearing an ugly prison jumpsuit; Yuuri debates telling him the catsuit Yuuri made for him is stashed somewhere onboard. Too soon? Viktor’s thigh is close enough that it’s touching Yuuri’s head. Is there even a good time to ask someone if they want to wear matching leather bondage suits with you?

“I wish I had a change of clothes.”

“Are you doing the mindreading thing!?”

“Am I—oh, I see,” Viktor says. “No, I just really hate this jumpsuit. Grey isn’t my color.”

“Every color is your color,” Yuuri says. “Even though grey…isn’t a color.”

“Black isn’t a color, either.”

“No one looks good in colored leather.”

“True,” Viktor says. “Remember Chad’s codpiece?”

“Hey, why do heroes always have codpieces?” Yuuri asks. He tries to sit up and somehow ends up with his head in Viktor’s lap. Somehow. He has no idea what happened. Gravity? He doesn’t know her. “And they’re always bright red or gold pleather.”

“The ISU was founded by a hero named Magnificent Man,” Viktor says. “Who famously wore a yellow codpiece to taunt his enemies.”

“…how?”

“The official records say that he was mocking them for having to resort to dirty tactics to win fights.”

“The unofficial records are about his dick, aren’t they.”

“They keep one of his uniforms on display at the HQ in Primopolis,” Viktor says. He shudders. “I touched it once—ugh.”

“You what?”

“Objects speak to me sometimes.”

“Is that why you hoard secondhand teacups?” Yuuri asks. He’s so, so glad Viktor has never touched any of Yuuri’s Nicephorus merch. Though he has touched Yuuri’s dick, so maybe it would have been better if Viktor fondled Yuuri’s marble bust of Nicephorus.

“The tea never tastes the same in a new cup.”

Viktor’s lap is not comfortable. His thighs are like concrete. Yuuri is going to have a crick in his neck. It’s worth it. He closes his eyes as Viktor toys with a strand of hair on Yuuri’s forehead; his hair gel was not designed to be waterproof. The hoverjet is starting to slow as it comes in for the descent, and Yuuri once again regrets making it so efficient and fast. He really doesn’t want to get off the plane at all.

“You never told me your origin story,” Yuuri murmurs.

“There’s not much to tell,” Viktor says softly. “I was left on a doorstep as an infant. Yakov and Lilia, the couple who lived there, adopted me and trained me to be a hero.”

“What happened to your parents?”

“I have no idea. My name was on the basket, so at least they…”

_I’ll take uncomfortable personal questions for five hundred._ Yuuri swallows; he can imagine a tiny baby with a few strands of pale hair. He feels guilty for having well-adjusted, supportive parents when he’s running around committing crimes. It’s not fair that Viktor, who is objectively a good person, should have no one—based on Viktor’s ominous comments about his family, ‘Yakov and Lilia’ weren’t on the same level as Hiroko and Toshiya Katsuki.

“I stole a dog,” Yuuri admits. “That’s my origin story.”

“I knew it.”

“It was only stealing because I didn’t do any of the paperwork.”

“Is it really a crime if there are dogs involved?”

“Yes?”

“No, it isn’t. That’s the law.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not the law.”

Viktor pokes him in the ribs. “You doubt me,” he says as Yuuri squirms; he’s ticklish. “Which one of us is a hero?”

“I had to go on the run to avoid the police,” Yuuri points out.

“Why did you steal Vicchan, anyway?”

“Vicchan was in an accident, and the only way to save him was experimental cybernetic surgery. So I forged the paperwork to make him a test subject, then hijacked company equipment to operate on him. That was pretty illegal, though, so I ended up just stealing the entire department’s plans and going on the run.”

“Yes, that’s so evil.”

“He was technically my dog.”

“I really like that you—”

BEEP!

The alarm goes off, interrupting whatever it is that Viktor likes about him. Yuuri glares at the flashing red light above him.

“Tell me you have Viktor with you,” Phichit says. He sounds harassed. Yuuri suspects it’s not the poor quality of cables from Best Buy that’s getting him down. “No, do not touch—what the fuck?”

“Carmine?”

“Eros, I swear to god, if you don’t have Viktor with you—”

“We’re on our way back,” Yuuri says hurriedly. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is that Chris is having a fucking class reunion in our living room. And they ate all my Thin Mints!”

“They what?” Yuuri says, horrified. He’d been planning to steal Phichit’s Thin Mints himself. How dare they. “Do you need the dungeon password?”

“What, like your sex room?”

“Your what?” Viktor asks.

“Nothing!” Yuuri says, way too loudly, considering his head is in Viktor’s lap and there’s no way Viktor can’t hear him. “I mean the prison cells downstairs.”

“…we have prison cells?”

“Yeah?”

“Huh,” Phichit says. “Just get back here before I kill all of them. None of the Girl Scout troops in New Metro take credit cards, do you know what a pain it was to get fifteen boxes of Thin Mints?”

“No,” Yuuri lies. Actually, Yuuri had Phichit make him a card reader under false pretenses and then donated it to a troop so that he could buy a year’s supply of cookies that he has hoarded in the volcano base. In the interest of  Phichit not knowing about his stash, Yuuri’s failed to mention that tidbit. “We’re coming in now, just hang on.” He starts to sit up, but Viktor puts a hand on his forehead and Yuuri immediately lies back down. It’s fine. Evil needs its beauty sleep. “What did he mean, family reunion?”

“Ah,” Viktor says. “Well. Chris might have been overzealous.”

“What does that mean?”

“How long do we have before we land?”

“Two minutes, max. Why?”

“Because this jumpsuit itches.”

“The bots probably brought your clothes,” Yuuri says. He hopes. The bots will have done something, they’re very forward thinking, but that something could be a tshirt and jeans or it could be Viktor’s entire closet unpacked in Yuuri’s bedroom. It’s hard to say.

Viktor frowns suddenly, and stares off into space. He’s not looking out of a window, but he doesn’t look happy about whatever he’s seeing. “Actually, can you drop me off at home?”

“Why?”

“No reason.”

“What? Are you going to be arrested again?”

“Mm.”

Makkachin, who is curled up on the floor, perks up. She turns in the same direction that Viktor is staring. She growls.

“I’m not dropping you off if you’re in danger.”

“It’s Yakov,” Viktor mutters. “He’s at my apartment. He’s not very happy with me.”

“…because you quit?”

“Exactly.”

“So, what, he’s here to yell at you?”

“Yakov’s primary form of communication is yelling. I don’t take it personally.”

“Why do you want to go home?” Yuuri asks. Yuuri avoids being yelled at by people he doesn’t like. He has things to do.

“He wants me to explain myself.”

“Do you want to explain yourself?”

“Not particularly.”

“So we should just go to the lair.”

Viktor looks down at him. He seems confused by the concept. _I guess they don’t train heroes to run away,_ Yuuri thinks. That seems kind of dumb to him. Yuuri has no issue with running away from fights he doesn’t feel like having. Real villainy is about brains, not brawn, and even if Yuuri is the least evil supervillain ever, at least he employs strategy.

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, “I—”

BEEP!

The plane swerves violently as something rams into it with a metallic screech. “ISU attack in progress,” the onboard computer announces.

Yuuri sputters as he, very reluctantly, gets off of Viktor’s lap. “Why didn’t that go off earlier?”

“Interruption of romantic interlude is inadvised.”

“You guys are not allowed to reprogram things,” Yuuri says to the bots. They boof at him unrepentantly.

The walls of the plane fade to transparent, so that they can clearly see a giant, white, UFO-looking thing driving at full speed towards them. It has large guns sticking out, like the legs on a spider. There’s a smear of dark paint on it where it ran into them. If the ISU dents Yuuri’s plane, he’ll kill them. It’s not like the plane is insured, since it’s an illegal vehicle with zero government certification or oversight. Yuuri’s going to have to hammer them out himself.

He glances at the map that’s now up on screen. They’re close to New Metro City now; they might as well land. Yuuri doesn’t like the idea of fighting an aerial battle above the city, where everyone beneath them will be at risk. He’ll have more control over collateral damage on the ground.

“What about Phichit?” Viktor asks. The nose of the plane tips down towards the ground.

“He’s a supervillain, he’ll be fine.”

Yuuri hangs onto Viktor, to keep him from getting injured, and for absolutely no other reason. Yeah, as far as Yuuri knows Viktor is invulnerable, but who knows? Maybe freefall is his kryptonite. Viktor puts his arms around him, too, possibly because of a noble concern for his safety. Possibly both of them are really gay.

The ISU aircraft is following them down. Yuuri can’t help but be smug about the fact it has to slow down, because it’s a shitty shape for flying straight down at the ground. The hoverjet, on the other hand, comes to a dead stop mid-dive and then gently hovers until it lands.

“Oh,” Viktor says. “That was exciting.”

“Can’t you fly?”

“Anyone can fly.”

_“I_ can’t fly.”

“Most superheroes can do it. It’s boring.”

“I have a jetpack.”

“Yes, I remember.”

Yuuri whistles for 47. “Hey,” he says, “can you bring some of the others? We’re gonna fight.”

“Boof!”

“Yeah, Phichit, too.”

“Boof?”

“Wait, what weird noise?”

“Oh,” Viktor says. “I was really hoping he’d given up singing.”

The ISU flying saucer lands— _if you can call that landing,_ Yuuri thinks, wincing as it groans heavily to the ground. Makkachin, sitting at Viktor’s feet, growls. Yuuri swears she blurs a little bit, like she can’t quite hold her dog shape. It’s not nearly as alarming as it should be, but then again, Yuuri lives with a swarm of sentient robots he built, so he and Viktor aren’t really working with a conventional definition of what a pet is.

“Who do you think they sent?” Yuuri asks. “Lion Flow?”

“Or Maple Blade. And Ice Tiger, I think.”

“Seriously? Isn’t he a kid?”

“We know each other. They wouldn’t think I would hurt him.”

The saucer begins to open, like a squashed egg cracking.

Behind him, Yuuri hears a noise—a high-pitched, mournful singing, or maybe a small, very angry animal having a tantrum—and when he turns around, there’s a thick black fog rolling in all around.

“What the…” He blinks as night vision kicks in. There’s a tall, lanky figure amidst the fog, with fingernails like talons and a pompadour.

“Just because I was arrested,” Viktor says. The jumpsuit he’s wearing starts to dissolve into gold sparks; they reform on his skin in glittering pink. The golden outline of a mask starts to spread bloom around his eyes. “You can relax. _They’re_ here for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry to be gone so long :(  
> i did pass the neuro unit, so after next week (ahahaha FOUR FINALS) i should be back with regular updates. i hope
> 
> comments are appreciated <3
> 
> you can find me [on tumblr](http://pencilwalla.tumblr.com/) or [on pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/seventhstar) or [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/starofseventh)
> 
> my discord is seventhstar1231

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] i'll be your sinner in secret (i'll be your hero and win it) by seventhstar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17026878) by [terrierlee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrierlee/pseuds/terrierlee)




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